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DOWN THE 

HISTORIC 

SUSQUEHANNA 

A SUMMER'S JAUNT 



Otsego to the Chesapeake 



BY 

Charles Weathers Bump 






BALTIMORE: 
Press of The Sun Printing Office 

1899. 



TWO COPIES RECElVBDi 



Library of CotlgPttflt 
Office of the 

lj r .,5_1Roq 

Register of Copyrights 



48534 



Copyrighted, 1899. 
All Rights Reserved. 



For the author's circulation, 
reprinted in revised and enlarged 
form, through the courtesy of the 
proprietors of The Baltimore 
Sun, to whom this acknowledg- 
ment of their generosity is due. 









TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

I. A Trip of Much Promise, ... 1 
Cooperstown, N. Y., August 15. 

II. In the Pages of History, ... 8 
Cooperstown, N. Y., August 16. 

III. Not Unsung by Pouts, 15 

Cooperstown, N. Y., August 17. 

IV. Cooper's "Glimmerglass" ... 25 

Cooperstown, N, Y., August 18. 

V. Two Modern Explorers, . . . 32 
Richfield Springs, N. Y., Aug. 19. 

VI. Thro' the Hop Country, ... 40 
Afton, N. Y., August 20. 

VII. Where Mormonism Began, ... 48 
Binghamton, N. Y., August 22. 

VIII. Along the Southern Tier, ... 57 
Owego, N. Y., August 23. 

IX. Legends of Two Hills, .... 66 
Pittstou, Pa., August 24. 

X. The Vale of Wyoming, .... 80 
Wilkesbarre, Pa , August 25. 

XL Beneath a Big City, 90 

Wilkesbarre, Pa., August 26. 

XII. The Home of Priestley, .... 97 
Northumberland, Pa., August 28. 



PAGE- 

XIII. Down the West Branch, .... 107 

Suubury, Pa., September 2. 

XIV. The Passing of the Boats, . . .120 

Sunbury, Pa., September 8. 

XV. A Noble Water Gap, 126 

Harrisburg, Pa., September 4. 

XVI. In Busy Harrisburg, 134 

Harrisburg, Pa., September 5. 

XVII. Some Model Farms, 142 

Columbia, Pa., September 6. 

XVIII. The Story op Columbia, .... 149 
Columbia, Pa., September 7. 

XIX. The Land op Big Barns, .... 157 
Columbia, Pa., September 9. 

XX. Amid Charming Highlands, . .164 
Port Deposit, Md., September 12. 

XXI. At the River's Mouth, .... 172 
Havre-de-Grace, Md., Sept. 14. 

XXII. George Talbot's Caye, . . . .ISO 
Watson's Island, Md.,Sept. 15. 



I. 
A TRIP OF MUCH PROMISE. 



Cooi'EitsTowN, Otsego County, N. Y., 
Aug. 15.— The other day when I told a 
friend I proposed to spend a summer vaca- 
tion in a trip making the entire length of 
the Susquehanna river from Lake Otsego 
to the Chesapeake, he said to me, sort of 
apologetically: 

"I have always considered the Susque- 
hanna such a useless river. It seems so big 
and lumbering, and it has not the charm 
of the Hudson for scenery or historic in- 
terest." 

Before we parted, an hour later, I had 
so oppositely convinced my friend that I 
am sure he is now envying me the trip. As 
for myself I redoubled my enthusiasm over 
the summer scheme. So here I am at the 
head of the big river, looking forward 
with eagerness to a jaunt of many miles 
down stream and forearmed, as it would 
seem, from "reading up" on what I am to 
see in the way of fine scenery, of sites in- 
vested with historic interest, and moun- 
tains and vales replete with romantic 
legends and Indian tales. 

A great many other persons are unde- 
niably in the same boat with my friend. 
Perhaps I myself might have been as igno- 
rant had I not had a grandfather who was 
familiar with every mile of the Susque- 
hanna and who repeated many of its most 
interesting incidents as we traveled to- 
gether along portions of its banks. 

Casting about for a reason, it seems to 
me that the fame of the Susquehanna has 
two distinct setbacks which have led to its 
comparative neglect by travelers in search 
of the picturesque or fond of tracing the 
footsteps of American history. 

One of these setbacks arose from the cir- 
cumstance that the river was peopled by 
three different Commonwealths— Maryland, 



Pennsylvania and New York. The New 
Yorkers look eastward to New York city 
and Albany. Similarly the Pennsylvanians 
mostly find a commingling of interest with 
Philadelphia. And out of all this grows 
much ignorance on the part of one section 
in the doings of another. In Maryland, for 
instance, little is known of the prosperity 
and attractiveness of the river valley with- 
in the limits of New York. While contrari- 
wise I have at times found much apathy in 
Central New York about the history and 
development of the river in Maryland and 
Lower Pennsylvania. 

Perhaps much of this isolation might 
have been overcome had the Susquehanna 
been regularly navigable by steamboats 
or had the railroads formed a single line 
from Cooperstown to Havre de Grace. 
Then a steady down-to-Maryland business 
would have ensued in big proportions and 
the charm of travel up and down the river 
would have been strong. , But the steam- 
boats could not come and the railroads 
mainly turned eastward and westward in 
their building, and so the Susquehanna has 
been passed by travelers. 

The importance of this consideration is 
seen by comparing the Susquehanna with 
the Hudson, beyond doubt the most ad- 
mired of American rivers. Railroads on 
both banks and steamboats day and night 
carry tourists from New York to Albany 
through the entire region of beauty, legend 
and history. It is again made obvious by 
recalling the Potomac, the scenic portion 
of which is traversed by every passenger 
to or from the West over the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railroad. The Susquehanna 
river has not one, but half a dozen rail- 
roads. They follow every mile of its banks 
from Otsego to the Chesapeake, yet no less 
than eight changes of cars are required for 
a through journey. 

And yet, in spite of such drawbacks, 
there is much of genuine interest to be 
found in a journey all the way along the 
Susquehanna. In its long and winding 
course from limpid Lake Otsego, its 
scenery is certainly as varied as that of 
any river. Sometimes through fertile val- 
leys teeming with busy farmers; then 



again in narrow, rocky gorges, with moun- 
tains close by framing in views that are 
hard to excel, and contributing rushing 
cascades to swell the big stream; again 
past cities alive with industries and im- 
portant as railroad centres. In all its 
windings it never has the fault of being 
monotonous, and often justly earns the 
application of those much-abused adjec- 
tives, "romantic," "noble" or "grand." No 
more pleasing lake scenery can be found 
than on and around Otsego; no more beau- 
tiful vale entered than that of Wyoming; 
no bolder views laid bare than above Har- 
risburg, where the river forces its way 
with abruptness through a gap in the Kic- 
tatinny Mountains; no finer rocky gorges 
than from Columbia to Port Deposit. 

The painters have not neglected the Sus- 
quehanna, especially the men who led 
American art in the generation just pass- 
ing away. Those who are familiar with 
the public and private galleries of our lead- 
ing American cities can easily recall can- 
vasses reproducing charming bits of river 
and mountain scenery from along the Sus- 
quehanna and the Juniata and other tribu- 
taries. In many instances these paintings 
are doubly valuable because they picture 
landscapes that have been greatly altered. 

Statistics are dull sometimes, but then 
again they give much in short compass. 
It interests us to be told, for example, 
that in the country drained by the Sus- 
quehanna there are two millions and a 
quarter of inhabitants. When we ask 
what is included in this drainage area we 
are told by Government investigators that 
the Susquehanna drains 26,000 square 
miles, of which 6,000 are in New York, 
nearly 20,000 in Pennsylvania and a small 
fraction in Maryland. In other words, 
it comprises about one-seventh of New 
York State, in the southern and central 
portions, and slightly less than one-half of 
Pennsylvania, sweeping from beyond 
Scranton on the northeast almost to 
Johnstown on the southwest, and from 
beyond Lancaster on the southeast to the 
oil region of the northwest. Of course, 
the Susquehanna does not do this un- 
aided. It has many, many active branches. 



the chief among which are the Chenango 
and the Chemung, in New York State, and 
the Juniata and the West Branch, in 
Pennsylvania. 

Incidentally let me remind you of one 
other fact concerning the Susquehanna 
which is of importance. It is, without ex- 
ception, the longest river on the Atlantic 
seaboard, and is overtopped in size only by 
a few of the great broad Western rivers. 
Its length is counted as 420 miles. That 
of the West Branch is more than 200 miles. 

The hundreds of towns found every few 
miles along the main river and its tribu- 
taries show how the two millions and a 
quarter of inhabitants are made up. It is 
true that there are no cities of the largest 
size, but there are many of the next size, 
the most conspicuous being Binghamtou, 
N. Y., at the junction of the Chenango 
river, which has 50,000; Elmira, on the 
Chemung, 33.000; Scranton, Pa., on the 
Lackawanna, 75,000; Wilkesbarre, on the 
main stream, 45,000; Williamsport, on the 
West Branch, 35,000; Harrisburg, on the 
main stream, 60,000; York, on Codorus 
creek, 30,000; Lancaster, on Conestoga 
creek. 40,000, and Altoona, 30,000. 

We are told also by the Government ex- 
perts already quoted that there is a goodly 
amount of water power in the rapids and 
descents of the Susquehanna and its many 
feeders. For instance. Lake Otsego is 
1,193 feet above tidewater, so that the 
river has to descend that considerable 
amount in getting to Havre de Grace. 
Much of this power is utilized, but much 
of it is not, and we are assured that there 
are valuable opportunities to get power for 
manufactures along a portion of the West 
Branch not yet developed by railroads. 

That one gap on the West Branch is the 
only part of the entire river which has 
not a railroad on the one bank or the 
other, sometimes on both. Close students 
of American development long ago ob- 
served how the rivers helped make the rail- 
roads great by yielding their banks to 
furnish available routes. This is especially 
noticeable in the case of the Susquehanna. 
Four of the great through lines to the 
West make use of portions of the river 



valley. They are the Pennsylvania, the 
Lehigh Valley, the Delaware, Lackawanna 
and Western and the Erie. 

The Pennsylvania comes in from Phila- 
delphia some miles below Harrisburg and 
leaves the Susquehanna at the mouth of 
the Juniata. The Lehigh Valley from 
New York enters the valley near Wilkes- 
barre and goes up stream to the mouth 
of the Chemung at Athens. The Erie 
approaches the river east of the town of 
Susquehanna and goes west with it to 
near Athens. Similarly the Delaware, 
Lackawanna and Western comes in at 
Great Bend and parallels the Erie to 
near Athens and beyond on the Chemung. 

Indeed, if the Baltimore and Ohio may 
be considered as entering the valley when 
it crosses its mouth at Havre de Grace, 
it can, with propriety, be asserted that 
only one of the big routes from New 
York does not use the Susquehanna Val- 
ley. That one is the New York Central. 

The first 16 miles of the river course be- 
low Lake Otsego is followed by the Coop- 
erstown and Charlotte Valley Railroad; 
then for 80 miles to Susquehanna, the 
Delaware and Hudson Railroad is there; 
then come the Erie and the Delaware, 
Lackawanna and Western on both banks 
to Waverly and the Lehigh Valley from 
Waverly to AVilkesbarre; then from 
Wilkesbarre to Northumberland and Sun- 
bury both banks are again occupied, the 
right by a division of the Delaware, Lacka- 
wanna and Western and the left by a di- 
vision of the Pennsylvania Railroad; from 
Sunbury to York Haven, through Harris- 
burg is the Northern Central Railroad, 
part of the Pennsylvania system, and 
from Harrisburg to the mouth of the river 
at Perryville the east bank contains the 
Columbia and Port Deposit divisions of 
the Pennsylvania. At Perryville the Phila- 
delphia, Wilmington and Baltimore is 
tapped. 

From which statements it is evident that 
the river is followed by railroads for each 
of its 420 miles, and that for nearly half 
of that distance there are tracks on both 
sides. Many other railroads come into the 
valley for a few miles here and there. 



notably in the great anthracite coal belt 
around Wilkesbarre and to the east of the 
river below Sunbury. That coal belt is in a 
great measure responsible for the develop- 
ment of the Susquehanna Valley in popu- 
lation and wealth. Mines honeycomb it. 
railroads cut into it everywhere and an- 
nually there is dug out of it and trans- 
ported to domestic and foreign markets 
the enormous amount of 50,000,000 tons of 
hard coal. 

As hard coal has put railroads along one 
branch of the Susquehanna so has soft coal 
intersected the headwaters of the West 
Branch with other railroads. The West 
Branch rises in Cambria county, Pennsyl- 
vania, not far north of Cresson. The re- 
markable thing about this source is that it 
is on the west slope of the Alleghany 
mountains and that in order to get through 
to meet the North Branch at Northumber- 
land it has to work its way through the 
mountains. 

After it leaves Cambria county the West 
Branch enters the Clearfield coal region 
and running hither and thither in this re- 
gion are half a dozen different railroad sys- 
tems, including several divisions and 
branches of the Pennsylvania; the Penn- 
sylvania and Northwestern; the Pittsburg 
and Eastern; the Buffalo.. Rochester and 
Pittsburg, and the Beech Creek Railroad, 
which after leaving the river at Clearfield 
again swings alongside of it at Lock Haven 
and goes with it to Williamsport, where 
the Beech Creek road ends and where it 
has an important traffic exchange with the 
Philadelphia and Reading. All these rail- 
roads are comparatively recent, because 
mining in the Clearfield coal region has 
only become important within the last dec- 
ade. 

From Clearfield to Karthaus is the one 
bit of the Susquehanna not yet taken up 
by railroads, but at Karthaus we again 
meet a ramification of the Pennsylvania 
system, the Philadelphia and Erie Road. 
On this line we may travel for more than 
a hundred miles down the river, through 
Williamsport and other flourishing towns 
and to the meeting place of the two big 
Susquehanna branches at Northumberland. 



/ 



From Willianisport to Northumberland the 
Pennsylvania is on one bank, while an im- 
portant division of the Philadelphia and 
Reading is on the other. 

I nearly forgot to speak of the intimate 
relation of the Susquehanna to a greater 
city than any within its watershed. I 
mean Baltimore. When rafts and boats 
with flour and farm products began to go 
down stream in profusion, Maryland's 
metropolis was the natural market, though 
some of the traffic was diverted overland 
to Philadelphia. Then the latter city's 
merchants began to reach out, and the 
Baltimoreans, to keep the lead, first built 
a series of steamboats, which proved to be 
failures, then a canal and finally a railroad 
—the Northern Central. The canal is dead 
now, but the railroad still carries a goodly 
trade from the Susquehanna to Baltimore, 
though, of course, the manifold industries 
of the river towns are too great to be con- 
tent with a single market. 

Thoughtful men in Baltimore see the 
day when that city will have to draw on 
the Susquehanna for a water supply. In- 
deed, the cost and the advantages were 
fully weighed when the present supply 
was enlarged 20 years ago, though the 
Gunpowder river was then found sufficient. 
Today Baltimore has more than half a mil- 
lion inhabitants; the limit of the Gunpow- 
der's capacity is foreshadowed and the 
Susquehanna will come next. Its water 
will have to be conveyed nearly 40 miles. 
Already the river is used in this way by 
cities further upstream, but none of them 
approach the magnitude of the Baltimore 
idea. 

Were I interested in geology or in duck- 
hunting and river fishing, there would be 
other avenues to open up delights on the 
Susquehanna for me. For the geologist 
there is a wonderful opportunity in a trip 
such as we promise. 

I am not a hunter of duck nor a student of 
rocks, and so I look for the interesting side 
of my jaunt to the natural beauty of the 
river valley, to the incidents of its past 
and the industries and achievements of the 
present. In them is the hope of this pil- 
grimage. 



II. 
IN THE PAGES OF HISTORY. 



Cooperstown, Otsego County, N. Y., 
Aug. 16.— So many pretty notions get frac- 
tured nowadays by heartless seekers for 
facts that it was really no surprise for me 
to learn yesterday that all our old ideas 
concerning the meaning of the name Sus- 
quehanna will have to be revised. 

It has been dinned into my ears from 
childhood — and I guess the same in your 
case, dear reader— that Susquehanna meant 
"long, crooked river," or else "broad, shal- 
low river," or else "wide, muddy river," 
or "the river of rapids." All seemed ap- 
propriate to the big stream, and so you 
and I accepted the one or the other as be- 
ing the true Indian name. 

Now we are told that all were guesses, 
made by men with only a half knowledge 
of native tongues. In their place we are 
asked to believe that the Susquehanna is 
"the river of the people with booty taken 
in war." And in the light of this assertion 
the following facts are recalled: 

Capt. John Smith, engaged in exploring 
the Chesapeake bay above Virginia in 1608, 
entered the mouth of the Susquehanna and 
there encountered a different set of In- 
dians from those he had previously known. 
They were brave, noble-looking fellows of 
giant stature — decked out in war paint and 
evidently fresh from a fight, as they had 
much spoil in their canoes. The doughty 
Virginian was unable to talk with them 
directly, but he used as interpreter an In- 
dian whose tongue he knew. When he 
asked the name of his new acquaintances, 
the interpreter — unable, possibly, to get or 
to understand the real tribal designation — 
replied that they were the Susquehan- 
noeks. "the people of booty taken in war." 



This, at least, is the theory of a recent 
scholar, who says that "sasquesa" meant 
"war booty," and "anough" meant "men." 
The older writers had maintained that 
"hanna" was "river," and that the first 
part meant either "crooked," "muddy," 
"shallow" or "rapids." 

i'ou can take your choice among these 
theories and guesses. If you like the ones 
which are descriptive of the river, believe 
in them. Yet, if the latest be true, it is 
rather curious, is it not, that the acci- 
dental error of a not over-intelligent in- 
terpreter should have given such a pretty 
name to a big Indian tribe and, after them, 
to this great, majestic river? 

I never reflect upon the name of the 
river without recalling how the truest of 
poets, Coleridge and Shelley, were both 
attracted by its sound and its suggestion 
of romance, and it was with positive 
pleasure that I read today what Robert 
Louis Stevenson said of the river when he 
crossed it in some of his travels through 
this country: "When I heard that the 
stream over which we passed was called 
the Susquehanna," wrote the English au- 
thor, "the beauty of the name seemed 
part and parcel of the land. As when 
Adam, with divine fitness, named the 
creatures, so this word Susquehanna was 
at once accepted by the fancy. That was 
the name, as no other could be, for that 
shining river and desirable valley." 

There were other Indian names than the 
one now borne. The Onondagas, of the Six 
Nations, called the river Ga-wa-no-wa-na- 
neh, or "the great island river." Among 
the Indians of the West Branch that por- 
tion of the Susquehanna was known as 
Otzinachson, or the "river of demons," be- 
cause of some tribal superstition that seems 
to have been widespread. "Quen-ish-ach- 
gek-ki," the stream of long reaches, was 
another name for the West Branch. 

It is often said that Capt. John Smith 
was the first white man to view the Sus- 
quehanna, but it is necessary to go earlier 
than that. There is even a belief that the 
famous Feruando de Soto penetrated to 
this river, but aside from such a tradition 
it is true that the first white men here 



were Spaniards, and that they long ante- 
dated John Smith. 

At an early day Spaniards were in the 
Chesapeake, and named it St. Mary's. 
From the bay they carried off a native to 
Mexico, where he was educated and bap- 
tized. This Indian returned to the Chesa- 
peake with several Spanish priests, and 
some distance up "a large river flowing 
into the bay" they founded a missionary 
station, which they called Axacan. This 
river was most probably the Susquehanna, 
and these priests the first white men to 
visit it. Their fate was a sad one. Their 
Indian protege turned on them and as- 
sisted in killing them. 

It is odd that while Smith, the English- 
man, and these Spanish priests were the 
pioneers of the lower Susquehanna, it 
should be reserved for a Frenchman and 
three Dutchmen to be the first whites to 
see the upper portion. The Frenchman 
was Etienne Brule, a lieutenant of Sam- 
uel Champlain, the Governor of Canada, 
and a noted discoverer. Champlain, with 
the Huron Indians as allies, in 1615 planned 
an attack on the Iroquois in Central New 
York. With 12 Hurons Brule was sent to 
secure the aid of the Andastes or Caron- 
tonans, whose chief village seems to have 
been somewhere on the Susquehanna— 
possibly near Athens, possibly much 
farther down. After many hardships and 
several bloody fights Brule reached the 
Carontonan town and they started to join 
Champlain, but found he had returned to 
Canada. This caused Brule to return 
with the Carontonans and spend the winter 
in explorations. Among other things he 
descended the river to "its junction with 
the sea." a journey which was made, so he 
reported, "through a series of populous 
tribes at war with one another." Three 
years elapsed before this hardy explorer 
got back to Champlain. The narrative of 
his adventures has a strange fascination 
for us who live in the days of comfortable 
railroad travel through peaceful, populous 
towns. 

About the same time three adventurous 
Dutchmen came into this wilderness from 
Albany, boated down the Susquehanna as 

10 



far as the neighborhood of Wilkesbarre, 
crossed overland to the Delaware and 
thence on to New York. Quite a different 
trip from a similar canoe outing often 
taken now! 

Nearly a century after the explorers 
came the traders, mostly established on 
that portion of the river now in Pennsyl- 
vania. Stories of them are fully retailed 
in the histories of that State. Many of 
them were French-Canadians. Some were 
noted characters, such as Conrad Weiser, 
who constantly served as the envoy of the 
Penns to the Indians. 

In my last letter I mentioned that civ- 
ilization moved up the Susquehanna in- 
stead of down. This is plainly shown by 
the dates of land purchases from the In- 
dians. Maryland secured her portion in the 
seventeenth century. William Penn prompt- 
ly saw the moral value of making pur- 
chases from the Indians, and in 1683, the 
year after Pennsylvania was settled, he 
enlisted the aid of Thomas Dongan, Gov- 
ernor of New York, who secured from the 
Indians a deed to "all that tract of land 
lying upon both sides the river commonly 
called or known by the name of the Sus- 
quehanna." Dongan, in 1696, transferred 
the title to Penn for the consideration of 
£100. What a miserable sum this now 
seems for a region where at least a million 
persons dwell. It was, of course, limited 
by the grants of royal charters, but, as I 
read it, it included the entire Susquehanna 
Valley within what is now Pennsylvania. 

Penn seems not to have been satisfied 
with this title, for in 1700 he had it rati- 
fied by the Susquehannocks, and in 1701 by 
other Indian tribes. Later his sons began 
to make fresh purchases. They bought 
everything south of Harrisburg in 1736; 
up to the neighborhood of Sunbury in 1749 
and 1758, and to Towanda in 1768. The 
last purchase by Pennsylvania was in 
1784, when the area north of Towanda 
and west • of the Susquehanna was ob- 
tained. New York's purchases of the Sus- 
quehanna Valley occured in the same dec- 
ade. Settlements in every case followed 
closely behind colonial purchases. 



11 



The Indian history of the Susquehanna 
is remarkable. It was dominated by the 
Iroquois, or Six Nations, who from their 
stronghold in Central New York, by using 
the Susquehanna mainly, but also the Mo- 
hawk, Hudson and Allegheny rivers, had 
built up an empire big in extent and pow- 
erful in kind. 

Many times a year tne Iruquois in their 
war canoes went down the Susquehanna to 
the Chesapeake and compelled the submis- 
sion of tribes as far as the Carolinas. The 
Journey was apparently no more to them 
than it is now to a traveler by train. They 
bested the Susquehannocks so often that 
they finally were able to force the rem- 
nant to abandon their Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania haunts and take up an humble po- 
sition under the conquerors' wing in New 
York. They did the same to the Lenni Le- 
napes on the Delaware, to the Nanticokes 
on the Eastern Shore and to the Shawnees 
higher up the Susquehanna. They kept 
the white man from fully settling the up- 
per Susquehanna Valley for nearly a cen- 
tury after the lower part was peopled by 
whites. 

There is no telling to what period their 
remarkable confederacy might have ex- 
teuded had they not adopted the British 
cause against the colonists. Then the 
Iroquois power was broken as quickly as 
it had been formed. The terrible Wyom- 
ing massacre in Susquehanna Valley and 
the massacre in Cherry Valley, on a tribu- 
tary of the Susquehanna, caused the ex- 
pedition of Gen. John Sullivan in 1779. 
He went up the river with a strong 
military force and was reinforced at the 
mouth of the Chemung by Gen. James 
Clinton, who had brought New York 
militia overland to Lake Otsego and then 
down the Susquehanna on rafts. General 
Sullivan burned Indian villages by the 
wholesale and gave the Iroquois a thrash- 
ing such as they had never had. After 
that they were willing enough to sell the 
fairest part of Central New York to the 
whites. 

The Wyoming and Cherry Valley mas- 
sacres are not the only dark stains of the 
sort in the Susquehanna Valley. After 

12 



Braddock's crushing defeat in 1755 the In- 
dians, backed by French officers and sol- 
diers, descended the river and spread ter- 
ror in many promising Pennsylvania set- 
tlements. There were massacres at a num- 
ber of points near Northumberland and in 
Cumberland Valley, and many more women 
and children were carried into captivity in 
Canada. 

The remembrance of the fiendish cruel- 
ties practised by the Indians led to the 
most horrible crime of all, the murder in 
1763 of the remnant of Susquehannock In- 
dians, who had long made their homes near 
where the Conestoga creek empties into 
the Susquehanna in Lancaster county. A 
group of frontiersmen, known as ''the Pax- 
ton boys," in a wanton attack on the set- 
tlement and in a later fiendish charge upon 
a public building, to which the survivors 
of the first affair had been removed, made 
away with 20 Indians, many of them wom- 
en and girls and none able-bodied war- 
riors. It was a crime which cannot be 
justified. 

As an echo of Indian occupation, stone 
weapons, utensils and implements are fre- 
quently found at every point of the river 
valley, many of them made from rocks 
which can only be traced hundreds of miles 
away. The skeletons of red men are also 
sometimes unearthed, some of them of 
giant type. 

In addition to the Wyoming and Cherry 
Valley massacres, the Susquehanna figures 
in the Revolutionary War in other ways. 
Its lower fords and ferries were constantly 
crossed by armies and leaders going from 
North to South and South to North. And 
when the Continental Congress was driven 
out of Philadelphia by British occupation 
it removed first to York, then to Lancas- 
ter, both of them on tributaries of the 
river and not far from the latter. 

In the contest of 1812 the mouth of the 
river again had a share of war. After 
terrorizing other towns at the head of 
Chesapeake bay the British fleet cap- 
tured and burned Havre de Grace and the 
village of Lapidum, a few miles tip the 
river. 

13 



Again in the Civil War the Susquehanna 
was the "high-water mark of the Con- 
federacy," Wrightsville being the nearest 
point to Philadelphia reached by any part 
of General Lee's army during the invasion 
of Pennsylvania in 1863. 

Nor should it be forgotten that this same 
section played a prominent part in co- 
lonial times in the border wars of Lord 
Baltimore and the Penns, both struggling 
to spread their boundaries. This con- 
test, frequently accompanied by blood- 
shed, developed a remarkable character in 
Col. Thomas Cresap, who upheld the Mary- 
land claims in York and Lancaster coun- 
ties with such courage as to make him one 
of the most interesting figures in American 
colonial life. 

The varying origin of the families who 
peopled the different parts of the Susque- 
hanna Valley is in itself a study. Quite 
naturally we at once think of the Palati- 
nate Germans or Pennsylvania Dutch, who 
have for two centuries left the impress of 
their thrift upon the rich farming lands of 
lower Pennsylvania. Next below them, on 
lands more rugged and rocky, were thou- 
sands of Scotch-Irish families; and farther, 
in Maryland, families of English and Irish 
stock. In Central Pennsylvania the river 
banks were cleared by persons mostly of 
English origin, while from Wilkesbarre 
north there was a decided preponderance 
of New England immigrants, indirectly 
English. To these the last half century 
has added the Welsh slate-miners in the 
Peach Bottom region; the Italian, Hun- 
garian, Russian, Polish and other Slavonic 
types in the coal mines, and the people of 
still other nationalities in the growing 
cities. 

Besides the actual history of the Susque- 
hanna, there is a wealth of interesting 
legend and folklore. I wish I had time to 
repeat it all. 



14 



III. 
NOT UNSUNG BY POETS. 



Cooperstown, Otsego County, N. Y., 
Aug. 17.— Yesterday I went into a book- 
store to get a recent novel. The man be- 
hind the counter was one of those whom a 
book-lover delights to meet, one who knew 
and prized the books he sold. It was easy 
to get into a chat with him about the litera- 
ture of the Susquehanna and the result 
will, I am sure, surprise you. 

Cooper's name, of course, was first on 
our lips when we started to recall the 
poetry and novels in which the Susque- 
hanna is well remembered. Then I spoke 
of Nathaniel P. Willis, most graceful of 
American authors, whose happy years of 
life beside this river at Owego found full 
expression in his varied writings. My 
friend, the bookseller, soon reminded me of 
Thomas Campbell and his epic, "Gertrude 
of Wyoming," while I, in turn, thought of 
other Englishmen, and suggested Cole- 
ridge and Southey, who, with the enthusi- 
asm of youth, dreamed of placing their 
ideal colony of Pantisocracy upon the 
banks of the Susquehanna, which, like 
Campbell, neither of them had ever seen 
nor ever saw. 

Wyoming's name brought to mind "The 
Death of the Fratricide," in which John 
Greenleaf Whittier has told in ballad form 
the fate of a hapless being who killed his 
own brother in the terrible Revolutionary 
tragedy. An echo of another massacre is 
found in "Jennie Marsh, of Cherry Valley," 
by George P. Morris, the editorial associate 
and friend of Willis. 

Thus we discoursed for fully an hour, 
adding to our catalogue a goodly array of 
notable poets and romancers. It was a 
casual review, of course, and doubtless 
many were omitted whom you may now re- 
call. But I cannot refrain from repeating 

15 



lor you some of the things which then 
came in mind or which we found by turn- 
ing to his well-stocked shelves. 

The thread which binds Southey and 
Coleridge to the Susquehanna is a slender 
one, but it must be acknowledged that 
there is something deeply interesting in 
their dream of starting upon the Susque- 
hana a brotherly community where pri- 
vate property was to be abolished, where 
two hours a day were to be spent in pro- 
viding food and the rest of the time "in 
rational society and intellectual employ- 
ment." Biographers of both poets tell 
how the scheme was talked of in 1794, 
when Coleridge was 22 and Southey two 
years younger, and how it was never real- 
ized because no funds were forthcoming 
and because the two wedded sisters and 
had to be practical enough to earn a liveli- 
hood. 

The reason why the Susquehanna was 
selected is in doubt. The fact that Dr. 
Joseph Priestley, founder of modern chem- 
istry and an eminent philosopher, had re- 
moved from England to Northumberland 
in the same year may have had something 
to do with it. But a letter from Coleridge 
to Southey, written at the time, adds an- 
other reason. The former, it appears, had 
met in London a suave American land 
agent, who recommended the Susquehanna 
"from its excessive beauty and its security 
from hostile Indians." The ease of farm- 
ing, the opportunity for literary men, the 
cheapness of land and of living and the 
credit obtainable were all duly impressed 
upon Coleridge, who, in his last sentence, 
says: "The mosquitoes are not so bad as 
our gnats; and after you have been there 
a little while, they don't trouble you 
much." Truly a most excellent land agent! 
Joseph Cottle, the British bookseller, 
whose after reminiscences add so much to 
the knowledge of his friends Coleridge and 
Southey, gives still more light. He says 
Coleridge would talk for hours at a time 
of the Susquehanna as "the only refuge 
for permanent repose." Then Cottle adds: 

It will excite marvelous surprise in the reader to 
understand that Mr. Coleridge's friends could not as- 
certain that he had received any specific informa- 
tion concerning this notable river. "It was a 

16 



I 



grand river," but there are many other noble and 
grand rivers in America (the Land of Rivers!), and 
the preference given to the Susquehanna seemed 
almost to arise solely from its imposing name, 
which, if not classical, was at least poetical, and 
it probably by mere accident became the centre of 
all his pleasurable associations. Had this same 
river been called the Miramichi or the Irrawaddy 
it would have been despoiled of half its charms 
and have sunk down into a vulgar stream, the at- 
mosphere of which might have suited well enough 
Russian boors, but which would have been pestifer- 
ous to men of letters. 

Cottle also quotes Coleridge's poem, "A 
Monody to Chatterton," written when 
Pantisoeraey was on tap. In it, after 
speaking of his vain aspirations for abso- 
lute liberty, he says: 

Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream 
Where Susquehanna pours his untamed stream; 
And on some hill, whose forest-growing side 
Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide. 

It is so usual here in Cooperstown to 
hear of "The Deerslayer" as associated 
with Otsego Lake that it is rarely remem- 
bered that other novels by Cooper depict 
later phases of life on the lake and river. 
Deerslayer is such an ideal of chivalresque 
manhood and the descriptions of the re- 
gion, then In the primeval wilderness, are 
so fine, that the first of the Leatherstock- 
!ng Tales overtops the novelist's other In- 
dian stories. But in "The. Pioneers, or the 
Sources of the Susquehanna," Cooper drew 
upon the early recollections of his life and 
has described with minuteness affairs in- 
cident to the settlement of the region by 
his father, who figures in the novel as 
Judge Temple. It is an animated presen- 
tation of the vigorous and picturesque 
country life of its time and place and is 
equally successful in its delineations of 
natural scenery. Then in "Home as Found" 
we are introduced to the descendants of 
the characters of '"The Pioneers" and to 
Cooperstown about 1835. In its day it was 
most unpopular for its criticisms of Amer- 
ican faults as seen by one who had dwelt 
abroad for some years, and it is unfortu- 
nate also in being made the vehicle for 
an account of a squabble between Cooper 
and his townspeople. In "Wyandotte, or 

17 



the Hutted Knoll," Cooper again returns 
to the Otsego. It narrates the settlement 
of an English family in the vicinity of 
the lake about the commencement of the 
Revolution, and abounds in quiet scenes of 
sylvan beauty and incidents of a calmer 
character than are usual in Cooper's fic- 
tions. 

The associations of Cooper with this 
pretty lake are well expressed in verse in 
a short anonymous poem which Henry W. 
Longfellow thought worthy of a page in 
his anthology, "Poems of Places." Some 
of its stanzas are as follows: 

O haunted lake, from out whose silver fountains 
The mighty Susquehanna takes its rise; 

O haunted lake, among the pineclad mountains, 
Forever smiling upward to the skies. 

A master's hand hath painted all thy beauties; 

A master's hand hath peopled all thy shore 
With wraiths of mighty hunters and fair maidens, 



A master's heart hath gilded all thy valley 
With golden splendor from a loving breast, 

And in thy little churchyard, 'neath the pine trees, 
A master's body sleeps in quiet rest. 

Cooper's daughter, Susan Fenimore, who 
died here but a few years ago, inherited 
her father's love for Otsego and the Sus- 
quehanna, and in "Rural Homes," which 
was published in the year before her father 
died, she charmingly and without extrava- 
gances described the scenery around her 
home in Cooperstown. She is the author of 
other works showing her appreciation of 
country life. In Cooperstown she is 
esteemed for her charities. 

The happy touch of Willis rechristened 
and made famous so many spots in the 
Highlands of the Hudson that "Idlewild" 
is more known as his home than "Glen- 
mary," near the Susquehanna. Yet some 
of the happiest years of his life were spent 
on the little place near Owego, which he 
poetically named for his wife. "Al Abri, 
or Letters From Under a Bridge," gives us 
an intimate sympathy with him at "Glen- 
inary," and contains descriptions of that 
portion of the Susquehanna which are writ- 
ten in his most graceful vein. He finds ma- 
terial where others would see nothing, and 

18 



so we get wonderfully interested in the 
little brook and the venerable toad and a 
dozen places and creatures that to others 
would seem commonplace. Similar delicate 
fancies characterize his petition "To the 
Unknown Purchaser and Next Occupant of 
Glenmary," written when financial troubles 
compelled him to return to New York and 
buckle down to steady labor. On the other 
hand, his "Revery at Glenmary" is the 
most sincerely devout of all his religious 
poems, while others of this kind, "A 
Thought Over a Cradle," "A Mother f o 
Her Child," "Thoughts While Making the 
Grave of a Newborn Child," let us see the 
sacreduess of his domestic life at Owego. 

The neighborhood of Owego is also re- 
flected in various short poems by William 
Henry Cuyler Hosiner, who is, perhaps, 
better known as the poet of the Genesee 
than of the Susquehanna. "A Voice From 
Glenmary" is a tribute to the memory of 
the first Mrs. Willis. Other poems by him 
which I noticed were: "Fir-Croft," "The 
Deserted Hall," "Lament for Sa-sa-na," 
"A Hunting Song," "A Cascade Near 
Wyoming" and "Lake Wyalusing." 

The satirical genius of James K. Paul- 
ding links him to the Susquehanna in a 
peculiar way. In 1813. when Admiral 
Cockburn and his British fleet burned and 
sacked the Maryland village of Havre de 
Grace, at the mouth of the Susquehanna. 
Paulding published "The Lay of the Scot- 
tish Fiddle," supposed to be written by 
Walter Scott. It is a free parody of the 
"Lay of the Last Minstrel," and is both 
a satire of the Scottish poem and of the 
British warfare on the Chesapeake. Some 
of its descriptive bits show a close famili- 
arity with the mouth of the Susquehanna. 
It is clever as a parody, and had the dis- 
tinction of provoking a fierce review from 
the London Quarterly. 

The vale of Wyoming is peculiarly rich 
in its associations with literature. This is 
partly due to its tragic story, partly to its 
natural beauty. Many of the later poets 
have been attracted to it by the "Ger- 
trude" of Thomas Campbell, which, in 
these days of Anglo-American ententes, 
may be recalled as being a pioneer in caus- 

19 



ing international good feeling. These are 
his familiar opening lines: 

On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming! 

Although the wild flower on thy ruined wall 
And roofless homes a sad remembrance bring 

Of what thy gentle people did befall, 

Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all 
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore. 

Sweet land! May I thy lost delights recall, 
And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore, " 
Whose beauty was the love of Pennsylvania's shore. 

Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies 
The happy shepherd swains had naught to do 

But feed their flocks on green declivities, 
Or skim, perchance, the lake with light canoe. 
From morn till evening's sweeter pastime grew, 

With timbrel, when beneath the forests brown, 
The lovely maidens would the dance renew; 

And aye those sunny mountains half-way down 

Would echo flageolet from some romantic town. 

Unfortunately Campbell never saw the 
valley of Wyoming and his descriptions do 
not fit it. This is noticeable in the lines 
just quoted, but more so in the next 
stanza, where he says you "may see the 
flamingo disporting" in the Susquehanna. 
The American poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck, 
pointed out this defect in a poem which 
he wrote when he first saw Wyoming. 
Halleck says: 

When thou com'st, in beauty, on my gaze, at last, 

"On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming!" 
Image of many a dream in hours long past, 

When life was in its bud and blossoming, 
And waters, gushing from the fountain spring 

Of pure enthusiast thought, dimmed my young eyes 
As by the poet home, on unseen wing, 

I breathed, in fancy, 'neath thy cloudless skies. 
The summer's air, and heard her echoed harmonies. 

Nature hath made thee lovelier than the power 

Even of Campbell's pen hath pictured: he 
Had woven, had he gazed one sunny hour 

Upon thy smiling vale, its scenery 
With more of truth, and made each rock and tree 

Known like old friends and greeted from afar, 
And there are tales of sad reality 

T n the dark legends of the border war, 
With woes of deeper tint than his own Gertrude's 
are. 

Two women writers who are warm in 
their poetic praises of Wyoming and the 
Susquehanna are Mrs. Lydia Huntley 
Sigourney and Mrs. Elizabeth Fries Ellet. 

20 



Mrs. Sigourney wrote several poems about 
Wyoming. "Zinzendorff," one of her long- 
est, tells the story of that noble Moravian's 
visit to the Indians there. "The Lily" is 
the story of Frances Slocum, who was car- 
ried off by Indians in the Revolution and 
found half a century later as the head of 
an Indian family. In "The Meeting of the 
Susquehanna and Lackawanna" Mrs. 
Sigourney says: 

Rush on, glad stream, in thy power and pride, 

To claim the hand of thy promised bride ; 

She doth haste from the realm of the darkened 

mine 
To mingle her murmured vows with thine; 
Ye have met— ye have met, and the shores prolong 
The liquid notes of your nuptial song. 

On, on, through the vale where the brave ones sleep. 

Where the waving foliage is rich and deep, 

I have stood on the mountain and roamed through 

the glen 
To the beautiful homes of the Western men; 
Yet naught in that realm of enchantment could see 
So fair as the vale of Wyoming to me. 

Mrs. Ellet, who is best known as the 
author of a "History of Women of the 
American Revolution," wrote these beauti- 
ful descriptive lines: 

Softly the blended light of evening rests 
Upon thee, lovely stream ! Thy gentle tide, 
Picturing the gorgeous beauty of the sky, 
Onward, unbroken by the ruffling wind, 
Majestically flows. Oh! by thy. side, 
Far from the tumults and the throng of men, 
And the vain cares that vex poor human life, 
"fwere happiness to dwell, alone with thee, 
And the wide, solemn grandeur of the scene. 
From thy green shores, the mountains that inclose 
In their vast sweep the beauties of the plain, 
Slowly receding, toward the skies ascend, 
Enrobed with clustering woods, o'er which the 

smile 
Of Autumn in his loveliness hath passed, 
Touching the foliage with his brilliant hues, 
And flinging o'er the lowliest leaf and shrub 
His golden livery. On the distant heights 
Soft clouds, earth-based, repose, and stretch afar 
Their burnished summits in the clear, blue Heaven, 
Flooded with splendor, that the dazzled eye 
Turns drooping from the sight. Nature is here 
Like a throned sovereign, and thy voice doth tell, 
In music never silent, of her power. 
Nor are thy tones unanswered, where she builds 
Such monuments of regal sway. 

21 



Alexander Wilson, the first American 
ornithologist, gained much information 
about birds during a walking trip from 
Philadelphia to Niagara in October, 1804. 
This journey he described in a lengthy 
poem, "The Foresters," which is com- 
mended for the ardent love of nature there- 
in revealed. He pasesd up the Susque- 
hanna from Wilkesbarre to Athens, and 
narrates many incidents along the way. 
It has been less than a century since then, 
but the valley has wonderfully changed 
since he described it, as these lines of his 
will show: 

And now Wyomi opened on our view, 
And, far beyond, the Alleghany blue, 
Immensely stretched; upon the plain below 
The painted roofs with gaudy colors glow, 
And Susquehanna's glittering stream is seen 
Winding in stately pomp through valle5 T s green. 
Hail, charming river! pure, transparent flood! 
Unstained by noxious swamps or choking mud; 
Thundering through broken rocks in whirling foam, 
Or pleased o'er beds of glittering sand to roam; 
Green be thy banks, sweet forest-wandering stream; 
Still may thy waves with finny treasures teem; 
The silvery shad and salmon crowd thy shores, 
Thy tall woods echoing to the sounding oars. 
On thy swollen bosom floating piles appear, 
Filled with the harvest of our rich frontier; 
Thy pine-browned cliffs, thy deep romantic vales, 
Where wolves now wander and the panther wails; 
Where at long intervals the hut forlorn 
Peeps from the verdure of embowering corn; 
In future times (nor distant far the day) 
Shall glow from crowded towns and villas gay; 
Unnumbered keels thy deepened course divide, 
And airy arches pompously bestride ; 
The domes of Science and Religion rise, 
And millions swarm where now a forest lies. 

A fine tribute to the Susquehanna is con- 
tained in Thomas Buchanan Head's "New 
Pastoral," which is a series of poetic 
sketches of the emigration of a family 
from middle Pennsylvania to Illinois. In 
it are these lines: 

I have seen 
In lands less free, less fair, but far more known, 
The streams which flow through history, and wash 
The legendary shores— and cleave in twain 
Old capitals and towns, dividing oft 
Great empires and estates of petty kings 
And princes, whose domains full many a field, 
Rustling with maize along our native West, 

22 



Outmeasme and might put to shame! and yet 
Nor Rhine, like Bacchus crowned and reeling 

through 
Hi* hills— nor Danube, marred with tyranny, 
His dull waves moaning on Hungarian shores— 
Nor rapid Po, his opaque waters pouring 
Athwart the fairest, fruitfulest, and worst 
Enslaved of European lands— nor Seine, 
Winding uncertain through inconstant France- 
Are half so fair as thy broad stream, whose breast 
Is gemmed with many isles, and whose proud name 
Shall yet become among the names of rivers 
A synonym of beauty— Susquehanna ! 

In his "Wagoner of the Alleghanies" 
Read also speaks in similar strain of 
Where queenly Susquehanna smiles 
Proud in the grace of her thousand isles. 

Praise of the Susquehanna not unlike 
Mr. Read's is to be found in many sonnets 
of Mr. Lloyd Mifflin, whose home is at Co- 
lumbia, Pa., and who has recently attract- 
ed much attention. In "My Native Stream" 
he says: 

To Vallambrosian valleys let them go, 
To steep Sorrento, or where ilex trees 
Oast their gray shadows o'er Sicilian seas; 
Dream at La Conca d'Oro, catch the glow 
Of sunset on the Ischian hills, and know 
The blue Ionian inlets, where the breeze, 
Leaving some snow-white temple's Phidian frieze, 
Wafts their light shallop languorously slow. 
Let me be here, far off from Zante's shore. 

Where Susquehanna spreads her liquid miles, 
To watch the circles from the dripping oar; 
To see her halcyon dip, her eagle soar; 

To drift at evening round her Indian isles, 
Or dream at noon beneath the sycamore. 

And in "The Susquehanna From the 
Cliff," written from Chiquesaluuga Rock, 
near his home, Mr. Mifflin says: 

Upon Salunga's laureled brow at rest 
With evening and with thee, as in a dream, 
Life flows unrippled even as thy stream. 

Below the islands jewel all thy breast. 

The dying glories of the crimson west 
Ave mirrored on thy surface till they seem 
Another sunset, and we fondly deem 

The splendors endless, e'en as those possessed 
In youth, which sink, alas! to duller hue 
As years around us darken and but few 

Faint stars appear, as now appear in thee. 
How softly round thy clustered rocks of blue 
Thou murmurest onward ! Oh ! may we pursue 

Our way as calmly to the eternal sea. 

23 



Mr Mifflin's home town, Columbia, was 
the scene of some incidents in the excft 

aom of Anglesey, whose story was firs* 
introduced into fiction by Smoflett in* 
"Peregrine Pickle.- and has sincTbeen re 
peated in "Florence Macarthy," in Scott s 
Guy Mannering," and more particularly 
m Charles Reade's well-known novel ^ "The 
Wandering Heir." ' xae 

The boys of this generation who have a 
fondness for tales of adventures have had 
the lr mterest awakened in the Susquehan 
na and particularly the Wyoming district 
by the fiction of Edward S. Ellis a Trei ' 
on schoolmaster, who has written harf a 
hundred stories of Indian times. One se 

call e d y th^2w° mP ^ iSin f three flumes, fs 
called the 'Wyoming Series," and in an- 

nesfserTe 1 " X* ** " Ri ™ ^ ™ld*r- 
setting Same region furni shes a 

Had we gone further, this letter might 
be a day's job for you. Of local historians 
the Susquehanna has had a hundred £££ 

ir^liTi W ri° m are ^oxning's S- 
Col wm. A V Ch fP m an, Charles Miner, 
Col. William L. Stone, George Peck Sten 
ben Jenkins, Hendrick B. Wright! StewS 
Pierce and others-Dr. William H Bgll 3 
Harnsburg, and J. N. Meginness, of Wil 
hamsport, whose "Otzinachson" is a store- 
house of West Branch Indian lore. Many 
ballad writers and local versifiers might 
be added, and in the domain of fiction 
could be dug up many titles of historical 

or TonTat ^V? bUt ^^ *»S 
or none at all. So, too, one could include the 

whole literature of that noble Indian U 

gan beginning with his speech as reported 

unon t°hT S / effer > S ° n - His °*rthplac P e was 
his M Hv , SuSQUehanna,s banks and there 
ms eail.v years were spent. But in what 
I have quoted I am sure there is enough to 
convince you that poets love the sSfquS 
hanna and that this great river has not 
gone unsung. oc 



24 



IV. 

COOPER'S "GLIMMERGLASS." 



Coopebstown, Otsego County, N. Y., 
Aug. 18.— If you dislike the novels of J. 
Feniinore. Cooper you may find it a sorry 
job to come here, for his genius made 
Cooperstown classic and Cooperstown is 
grateful. 

We have not many of these shrines of lit- 
erary men in America and for that reason 
Cooperstown is rather unique. But the 
European traveler can surmise just what 
will be found here if he recalls his visits 
to the homes of Scott, of Burns, of Shakes- 
peare, of a score of other famous members 
of the authors' guild. 

When we came by train we were driven 
down Leatherstocking street to the Feni- 
rnore House. The conversation of the 
others at our first meal dwelt upon the 
beauties of Otsego Lake as written up by 
Cooper. Upon the front porch we noticed 
many delving into the pages of some one 
or other of his novels, possibly reading 
them over to refreshen themselves upon 
the spot, but maybe secretly getting ac- 
quainted for the first time in order to 
join in the prevailing topic of conversa- 
tion. 

Leaving the hotel for a stroll east on 
Main street, we observed the bookstores 
displaying Cooper literature and appropri- 
ate photographs, while the next-door mer- 
chant was trying to attract our attention 
to his souvenir china and his Cooper 
spoons. 

Presently we crossed Pioneer street and 
a block farther turned through handsome 
marble gates into a pretty park whose 
centre is occupied by an exquisite statue 
of Cooper's noblest Indian mounted upon 
an immense bowlder of syenite. Upon this 

25 



spot, we were told, was Cooper's handsome 
home, Otsego Hall, which was burned soon 
after his death in 1851. 

Passing out of the little park by its up- 
per gate, a few steps farther eastward 
brought us to the yard of Christ Church, 
where the distinguished novelist lies buried. 
I cannot exactly describe it, but some- 
how or other it reminded me of the yard 
of the famous edifice at Stratford, within 
whose walls Shakespeare rests. The Strat- 
ford church is a finer building, but this 
American one has its own merit and for 
picturesque surroundings is fully equal to 
the other. It stands near the green banks 
of the Susquehanna, as the Stratford 
church does near the banks of the Avon— 
but the banks of the Susquehanna are 
higher and bolder and more embowered, 
and it is placed in a landscape of greater 
variety than that of the Avon. The 
grounds about the church are shaded with 
noble and venerable pines, elms and ma- 
ples, and beneath them have been laid, 
side by side, five generations of the Cooper 
family. The novelist sleeps beside his wife 
under a flat marble slab turned dark with- 
in the half century. 

A few feet away lies his father, William 
Cooper— the founder of Cooperstown— aft- 
erward judge of the county of Otsego and 
its first representative in Congress. The 
father was a New Jersey man who, having 
acquired a large tract in the valley of the 
Susquehanna and around the lower shores 
of the lake, came here in 1786 to reside 
and to improve his land. It was then a 
wilderness, still echoing the red man's 
tread and dwelt in by but few white men. 
An occasional trapper or colonial soldier 
had strayed this way. Then in 1779 Gen. 
James Clinton brought his army here to go 
down the Susquehanna to join General 
Sullivan. And in 1783 Washington made a 
special trip here from the Mohawk Valley 
to study the possibilities of the Susque- 
hanna for inland navigation. 

The place which Judge Cooper founded 
early became the centre of a circle of cul- 
tivated and refined men and women, such 
as is rarely found in a village of its size. 
It has retained that tone through the cen- 

26 



tury and has added to it greatly in recent 
years by becoming an attractive summer 
resting place for city dwellers of wealth 
and culture. Many such have their homes 
here in these months and many others 
yearly rent cottages in order to find sweet 
retreat in a village beautiful for situation, 
healthy because high, pretty in its out- 
ward evidences, possessing historic inter- 
est, yet not ultra-fashionable nor "'loud" 
and stylish. 

Next to Cooper's, the name most often 
heard here is that of Clark, or Clarke. 
The upper eastern end of Otsego's shores 
has been for a century a part of the big 
estate of a family of the latter mode of 
spelling, while the millions made by a resi- 
dent who spelt his name without the "e" 
have been generously used to promote the 
welfare and attractiveness of Cooperstown 
in many ways. The pretty park on the 
site of Cooper's home and its beautiful cen- 
tre statue are both a memorial to Cooper 
from Mrs. Alfred Corning Clark, whose 
handsome home is near by and who has also 
erected a series of fine gray stone buildings 
in front of the park. The most striking 
of these has been donated as a village li- 
brary, another as a home and gymnasium 
for the Y. M. C. A., while the third con- 
tains the offices of the Clark estate. The 
father of Mrs. Clark's dead husband was 
Edward Clark, who made his fortune by a 
sewing machine invention. 

A minute's walk from Christ Church 
yard and we were beside the Susquehanna. 
Though only a few hundred feet from its 
beginning the bends and overhanging 
trees jealously hid the lake from us. As 
we stopped a short while admiring the 
placid beauty of the little stream that is 
destined to large things ere it loses its 
identity, I could not help recalling what 
Willis wrote after he had stood there in 
the same admiring frame of mind. "The 
Susquehanna breaks out of the lake just 
at Cooper's door," he said, "and it is a 
magnificent river as his is a magnificent 
mind. As a twin-fountain head of intellect 
that honors the country and waters that 
fertilize it, it is a spot that has a good 
right to be famous." 

27 



Presently we were upon the shores of 
the lake. We have been in Cooperstown 
for several days now and have taken every 
opportunity to see Cooper's "Glimmer- 
glass" from its many vantage points, but, 
though it has been intensified, I do not 
think I shall ever quite forget the beauty 
of the lake as I first saw it. It is a body 
of deep, clear blue water, about nine miles 
long and from three-quarters of a mile 
to two miles wide, extending from north 
to south and lying between rather abrupt 
and densely wooded low mountains on 
the east and gently sloping beautiful and 
gracefully rounded hills on the west. The 
almost unbroken forest of the eastern side 
offers combinations of color rarely equaled 
for beauty and variety and wonderfully 
heightened on this first view by the gold 
and red of the sinking sun. The west side's 
easier slopes were covered with a variety 
of farm crops, richly cultivated fields, 
meadows and pastures, among which are 
quiet farmhouses and more costly summer 
homes, forming in all a scene of great pas- 
toral beauty. 

The north end of the lake bends to the 
west, and it was not possible to see the 
head, but in its stead we had a beautiful 
view of the bold wooded mountain which 
from its outline is often called "the Sleep- 
ing Lion," but whose true name is Mount 
Wellington, after a certain "Iron Duke." 

Nearer at hand, on the east side, is a 
peculiar structure rising out of the water, 
apparently a stone lighthouse built regard- 
less of expense. This is "Kingfisher 
Tower," designed like a mediaeval castle 
and erected to a height of 60 feet. Its 
main windows are brilliant with stained 
glass, its roof glistens with red earthen 
tiles and on its land side is a drawbridge 
and portcullis. This odd "view-structure" 
was put up in 1876 by the late Edward 
Clark. 

A cleared spot on the mountain side 
above Kingfisher Tower was the farm of 
Fenimore Cooper, "The Chalet," where he 
daily rode or walked to seek relaxation 
from mental labors by directing its tillage. 
Nearer to Cooperstown on the same side is 
Lakewood Cemetery, in which there is a 

28 



monument to Cooper, a slender marble 
shaft surmounted by a statuette of 
"Leatherstocking," in which the old 
"scout," clad in a hunting shirt, with deer- 
skin cap and leggins, leans on his long rifle 
and looks wistfully across the Otsego over 
the hills toward the West. His dog, "Hec- 
tor," is at his feet, looking up into the 
old hunter's face. The monument has va- 
rious emblems illustrative of Cooper's In- 
dian and sea novels. 

You will recall Cooper's loving description 
of the lake in the first chapter of "The Deer- 
slayer." It is often quoted in full by later 
writers who describe their visits here. It 
was, in Deerslayer's day, "a broad sheet 
of water, so placid and limpid that it re- 
sembled a bed of the pure mountain at- 
mosphere compressed into a setting of 
bills and woods." Its most striking pecu- 
liarities "were its solemn solitude and 
sweet repose." "On all sides, wherever 
the eye turned, nothing met it but the 
mirror-like surface of the lake, the placid 
view of heaven, and the dense setting of 
woods. So rich and fleecy were the out- 
lines of the forest that scarce an opening 
cotild be seen, the whole visible earth, 
from the rounded mountain top to the 
water's edge, presenting one unvaried line 
of unbroken verdure." 

It is easy for me now to comprehend the 
delight of Deerslayer when he first viewed 
this "glorious picture of affluent forest 
grandeur relieved by the beautiful variety 
afforded by the presence of so broad an ex- 
panse of water." And we feel satisfied, 
too, at the appropriateness of the name 
"Glimmerglass" when we gaze upon "the 
surface as smooth as glass and as limpid 
as pure air, throwing back the mountains, 
clothed in dark pines, along the whole of 
its eastern boundary, the points thrusting 
forward their trees even to nearly hori- 
zontal lines, while the bays are glittering 
through an occasional arch beneath, left 
by a vault fretted with branches and 
leaves." 

Not only do we admire the lake when 
its surface is so mirror-like that it reflects 
the pines "as if it would throw back the 
hills that hang over it." For with the rip- 

29 



pies come new beauties, new brilliancies 
of coloring, wonderful tints, a sheen not 
single, but made of many pure colors. 

For quiet beauty, for picturesqueness of 
form and outline, for charming atmos 
pheric effects, this highland lake is often 
truly compared to the famous lakes of Eu- 
rope. It can lay no claim to grandeur, as 
the novelist's daughter.. Miss Susan Feni- 
more Cooper, has written, "yet there is 
harmony in the different parts of the pic- 
ture, which gives it much merit and which 
must always excite a lively feeling of 
pleasure. The hills are a charming setting 
for the lake at their feet, neither so lofty 
as to belittle the sheet of water, nor so 
low as to be tame and commonplace; there 
is abundance of wood on their swelling 
ridges to give the charm of forest scenery, 
enough of tillage to add the varied in- 
terest of cultivation; the lake with its 
clear, placid waters lies gracefully beneath 
the mountains, flowing here into a quiet 
little bay, there skirting a wooded point, 
filling its ample basin, without encroaching 
on its banks by a rood of marsh or bog." 

Around the whole the pen of Cooper has 
thrown a halo of romance of such power 
and such exactitude in description that 
when you begin by picking out the sites 
of the different incidents of "The Deer- 
slayer," you end by forgetting that the 
characters never lived and invest the spots 
with a real historic interest. Every little 
point has been portrayed with a wealth of 
detail that makes the story as real as the 
place itself. The brain of the novelist was 
most cunning with the spots he had loved 
and cherished from boyhood. 

As we rode up the lake on one of its lit- 
tle steamers, with Mount Vision on our 
right, Hannah's Hill opposite, Mount Wel- 
lington ahead and round Council Rock be- 
hind at the Susquehanna's start, we 
seemed to see Natty Bumppo's skiff glid- 
ing along with caution for fear of hostile 
redskins: to hear Hurry Harry's voice; to 
catch a glimpse of brilliant, handsome, 
willful Judith, her gentler sister Hetty, 
and the wise, brave, true-minded Deer- 
slayer. Incident after incident of Cooper's 
novels came to mind and we looked with 

30 



eagerness for Leatherstocking's cave, on 
Mount Vision, where Chingachgook died; 
for Rat Cove, for Point Judith, for Leath- 
erstoeking Falls, for Wild Rose Point, 
where many exciting incidents were lo- 
cated; for Gravelly Point, where Deer- 
slayer killed his first Indian; for the canyon 
on Five-Mile Point, where he hid \mder a 
fallen tree from 40 Indians; for Hutter's 
Point, where he first viewed the "Gliin- 
merglass," and finally for the shoal spot 
supposed to be the site of the sunken is- 
land where Hutter and his daughters had 
dwelt in Muskrat Castle. 

Thus to the pleasure of a ride upon a 
beautiful lake was added the charm of 
tracing the scenes of a great work of fic- 
tion. The boat passed by various costly 
country homes and stopped at many little 
landings in front of cottages peopled with 
outing parties. This part of the trip 
formed still another kind of diversion. 
Years ago Cooper predicted that Otsego 
would become a favorite summer resort. It 
seems to have come true. 

Chance gave us the opportunity of seeing 
Otsego in another way \ipon the same day. 
In the morning our boat ride was taken, in 
the afternoon we drove around the lake— 
a rare pleasure. A constant succession of 
lovely vistas was encountered — but the 
finest part of the drive was in the long 
stretch of winding road beneath overarch- 
ing trees, which afforded a delightful 
sense of seclusion. It was the capstone 
of our edifice of charming memories of the 
"Glimmerglass." T shall ever love Cooper 
the more for having introduced this lake 
to fame, and to me. 



31 



V. 

TWO MODERN EXPLORERS. 



Richfield Springs, Otsego County, N. 
Y., Aug. 19.— Yesterday, when we were sit- 
ting on the porch of the Fenimore House, 
at Cooperstown, I said to my wife: 

"How wouid you like to be an explorer?" 

"I am willing," was her reply; "but is 
there anything left for us to discover?" 

"Come with me tomorrow," I remarked 
mysteriously. 

That is how we happen to be here at 
Richfield Springs today. 

I can already hear you remarking that 
Richfield is not an unknown land, and that 
thousands and thousands have been here 
before me. That attitude is because I 
have not explained myself. Maybe when 
I get through you will be willing to rank 
me with Stanley and Peary and a few 
other men of equal renown. Maybe not. 
That is for you to decide. 

You see, it all came about in this way: 
The geographers and the cyclopsedists in- 
variably tell you that the Susquehanna 
has its source in Otsego lake. I wasn't 
satisfied with that. "Why not get farther 
back?" said I to myself. Not that I wished 
to rob Cooper's beautiful lake of any of 
its glory. I admire it too greatly. But I 
was coached in school by a professor who 
was a great stickler for all the facts, and 
;is my purpose is to tell everything about 
the Susquehanna, I determined to go on a 
hunt for the Susquehanna's farthest head- 
waters. 

The other day, when we drove all the 
way around Otsego, we crossed several 
brooks that evidently emptied into the 
lake. "Possibly their source may be what 
I aim to find," said I to myself. So, when 
we returned to Cooperstown, I hunted up 
a detailed map of this region, and from 

32 



that map I made various deductions, which 
finally led up to our getting to Richfield to- 
day. 

"Queer way to be an explorer!" I can 
hear you exclaim. "To have a map! The 
idea!" Well, wait a bit before you again 
east suspicions on my claim. 

I found that three brooks of some length, 
but of small size, come into the upper end 
of Otsego lake. One is three miles long, 
another six, the third eight. I had about 
determined upon one of these streams, 
when the lake which lies here below Rich- 
field Springs caught my eye. It is just as 
truly one of the sources of the Susque- 
hanna as is its larger, more beautiful and 
more romantic rival back over the hills 
yonder to the east. Its outlet, Oak creek, 
meets the waters from Otsego Lake four 
miles below Cooperstown. It is not much 
of a meeting, because the Susquehanna is 
small and Oak creek smaller still. 

Oak Creek is nearly if not quite fourteen 
miles long from Richfield's lake. The lat- 
ter, formerly known as Schuyler's lake 
from an early settler, but now repossessing 
its Indian name of Canadarago — is four 
miles long. Into its upper end, after flow- 
ing through the village of Richfield 
Springs, comes a stream whose length is 
eight miles, called Ocquionis by the In- 
dians and Fish creek by the whites. 

If you will add up my figures, reader, and 
compare them, you will see that the source 
of Fish creek is the farthest headwater oi 
the Susquehanna. And you will begin to 
understand why two modern explorers 
drove today from Cooperstown to Rich- 
field and beyond. And why I feel a bit 
tickled at the idea of having added more 
than twenty miles to the generally ac- 
cepted length of the Susquehanna. Of 
course, carping critics would raise a "hue 
and cry," but what care I, serene in my 
own conceit. 

We found the springs which give rise to 
Fish creek in a high, hilly country north 
of Richfield toward the beautiful Mo- 
hawk Valley. In fact, a mile or two beyond 
there was a fine outlook. There was the 
dividing ridge. The rainwater which 

33 



falls at one place passes into the Mohawk 
and so into the Hudson. The rain not 
far away reaches the Chesapeake by way 
of the Susquehanna. Those old maxims 
about "small beginnings" came into our 
minds as we realized just where we were. 
From there the mouth of the Susquehanna 
was nearly 450 miles away. By that route 
it was nearly 700 miles to the ocean. By 
the Mohawk 200 miles would bring the 
chance raindrop to the great sea. It is fan- 
ciful, I know, but I almost endowed the 
drops with feeling and felt pity for them 
that half should be borne by Nature's 
chance so far from their brothers. 

A more odd evidence of this "parting of 
the waters" is found in Summit lake, 
which is four miles north of Otsego lake. 
In ordinary times it's outlet is one of 
the brooks which I have mentioned as flow- 
ing into Otsego. But in high water 
another outlet carries half of it north into 
the Mohawk. 

The drive along Fish creek is one of the 
many popular ones in the neighborhood of 
Richfield. The stream runs between good 
hills, and is very generally bordered by 
steep banks. Two fine estates are reached 
by this drive— "Cullen wood," the home of 
Col. William Cullen Crain, and the Cruger 
Mansion, a fine antique stone structure 
overlooking the Mohawk Valley, and origi- 
nally the manor house of an estate of 26,- 
000 acres. Jordanville is the name of a 
little hamlet near the spot where Fish 
creek begins. This, by the way, is in an- 
other shire than Otsego, for Warren town- 
ship, in which Fish creek rises, is in Her- 
kimer county. 

It is a rather curious fact that, before the 
days of dams and other artificial obstruc- 
tions in the Susquehanna, shad in the 
spring actually reached Fish creek from 
the Chesapeake and were caught in abun- 
dance in these waters. In fact, lamenta- 
tions over the loss of the shad are common 
among the old inhabitants of the entire 
Upper Susquehanna. 

The country about Richfield Springs is 
certainly a diversified one, with many hills 
of varied heights and quite a series of little 
lakes and blue ponds. We had a splendid 

34 



opportunity to grasp this fact this morn- 
ing, for, on our drive from Cooperstown, 
we climbed Mount Otsego and there had a 
beautiful panoramic view. Once this high 
summit was called Rum Hill, but that 
phase of culture and progress which gets 
in its work on ugly and queer names was 
successful here. The summit is 2,800 feet 
above sea level and 1,600 feet above the 
level of Otsego lake. It is easily the 
highest point in this region, and for that 
reason the observatory which lifts its head 
above the trees on the mountain crest has 
the advantage of being able to command 
an extensive view in every direction. I 
honestly deem it one of the finest out'ook 
points I have ever visited, though it has its 
limitations, as we discovered when we 
tried to rind Cooperstown, which we had 
left six miles behind, or Richfield Springs, 
which lay the same distance northwest. 
Both were hidden behind the ridges of 
jealous hills. This was the more notice- 
able because almost the whole length of 
Otsego lake reflected blue far beneath us. 
Northward the Adirondacks were clearly 
seen. To the northeast the Green Moun- 
tains of Vermont were dimmer. So, too, 
were the hills of Western Massachusetts. 
To the southeast the Catskills were plain. 
A ridge of the Alleghanies limned the hori- 
zon on the south, while on the west and 
northwest it was bounded by the hills of 
Chenango, Madison and Oneida counties. 
The two great mountain ranges of this 
State and that of another State were thus 
revealed, 60 to 80 miles away. The highest 
peaks of the Adirondacks were easily 
picked out. 

We were much amused by the grandilo- 
quence of a man whom I may with pro- 
priety call the "view-expounder." We 
reached the top some minutes before him 
and thus had an opportunity to drink in 
the wonderful panorama before he broke in 
upon us. His first statement was that "the 
view from Mount Otsego comprehended 
9 States and 40 counties." Then, with 
a general sweep of his hand, he indicated 
"the whole course of the Hudson, from the 
Adirondacks to New York city." Then he 
pointed out the "Alleghanies down inPenn- 

35 



sylvania," and presently, taking up a poor 
field glass, he picked out some forest fires 
in the Adirondacks. It was kind of him to 
thus retail an item which had been in yes- 
terday's papers, but unfortunately for his 
veracity these fires were upon the north 
side of the Adirondacks, fully 200 miles 
away. 

Every minute I expected him to point out 
Canada, or Boston, or the monument at 
Washington. But he refrained. 

Richfield, of course, is famous for its sul- 
phur springs, which are considered the 
strongest in this country. I echoed the idea 
when we entered the front room of the 
elaborate series of bathhouses. In a foun- 
tain in the centre the waters are made to 
bubble and sparkle until they really look 
tempting, but the odor of the place prompt- 
ly reminded me of a story of a countryman 
who was passing here when this spriug was 
being uncovered and enlarged, 80 years ago. 
Smallpox was prevalent in the neighbor- 
hood, and when the farmer got a good 
whiff of the bad-egg odor, he whipped up 
his horse and with a groan exclaimed: "Oh, 
God; I've ketched it!" 

Sitting in the trim little park in front of 
the bathing establishment and opposite the 
leading hotel, the Earlington, I could not 
avoid contrasting the past and present of 
Richfield. The springs were noted for their 
healing qualities among the Mohawk In- 
dians, but it was not until 1820 that a 
young physician thought of booming the 
place as an invalid resort. Boarders came 
at $1.25 a week, and were then merely 
"outlanders" in a rich cheese-making coun- 
try. 

Today living costs 20 times the sum 
named, and Richfield is famous and fash- 
ionable, its popularity largely due to the 
favor of that section of the "smart set" 
which prefers an inland watering place 
more select thau Saratoga. Its chief ave- 
nue is lined with hotels. There are in and 
near the town the summer homes of many 
wealthy folk. Golf links have made de- 
mands upon near-by fields. East Indian 
gymkhana races and a horse show hold 
forth at the fair grounds. Wheelmen and 
wheel women spin around Lake Canadar- 

36 



ago. Tallyhos and stylish traps dispute 
the roads with them and with those in 
the saddle. An orchestra plays many num- 
bers daily at the Earlington, and in other 
ways it is evident that wealth and ele- 
gance dominate, at least in the summer. 

Yet with all this, the farmer has not 
been elbowed out. His hay wagon or his 
carryall jogs in review past the Earliug- 
ton's porch parties side by side with the 
fine coach or drag, while his hopfields and 
his cornfields are set over against the mil- 
lionaire's lawn or handsome home. In- 
deed, you are hardly out of sight of the 
hotels before you are in a land of farm- 
workers. 

I might enjoy life here at Richfield were 
I a cottager, but I am not so sure about 
an extended stay at the hotels. The waters 
are so widely praised as of value in cases 
of rheumatism, gout, neuralgia and dis- 
eases of the blood and liver that many evi- 
dent sufferers are here. Even though they 
may be of one's own set and warm friends, 
their presence, it seems to me, cannot 
help but act as a damper upon the gen- 
eral gayety. 

The bathing establishment affords an in- 
teresting study of the approved methods of 
treating these health seekers. There are 
pulverization, inhalation, douche, vapor 
and massage rooms, Turkish and Russian 
baths, sun baths, electric baths and a 
large swimming pool of sulphur water. So 
that, if you choose, you can get saturated 
with sulphur externally and internally be- 
fore you leave. 

If you have a woman friend whom you 
have reason to believe employs artificial 
aids in her toilet, advise her to stay away 
from Richfield. Sulphur, you know, oxi- 
dizes metallic cosmetics and the appear- 
ance of the cheeks under such circum- 
stances is scarcely beautiful. Similar 
tricks are played with one's jewelry. 

The estate of the late Cyrus H. McCor- 
mick, of Chicago, who made millions by 
inventing agricultural implements, is on 
the eastern slope of Sunset Hill, north of 
the town. Richard Croker has a stock farm 
near here, on which his family have been 
dwelling this summer while the Tammany 

37 



leader has been abroad or busy in fixing up 
political slates. 

Lake Canadarago is a favorite place for 
drives, canoe and steamboat trips and fish 
and game suppers. It is a pretty sheet, 
though not to be compared with Otsego. 
In the centre is a wooded island. A legend 
saith that a corresponding island once 
stood a short distance away, but that the 
wrath of the Almighty suddenly sank it be- 
cause a Mohawk healing prophet who 
dwelt on it became so puffed with pride as 
to proclaim himself the "twin brother of 
the Great Spirit." 

I have spoken of the drives to Cullen- 
wood, to Lake Canadarago and to Mount 
Otsego, but have said not a word of one 
of the most noted— that to the east past 
two pretty little "Twin Lakes," through 
the village of Springfield, at the head of 
Otsego Lake, over into the historic Cherry 
Valley and on beyond for seven miles to 
Sharon Springs. The road followed is the 
old State turnpike to Albany from the 
western counties. To Cherry Valley is 15 
miles. Prom Cooperstown to Cherry Val- 
ley is about the same distance. 

Sharon is a watering place whose glory 
as a summer resort has given way to popu- 
larity as a sanitarium. It has sulphur 
springs like those of Richfield, and also 
chalybeate and magnesia springs. It has 
all the water-cure treatments in vogue at 
Richfield and, in addition, one may take 
mud baths, pine needle baths and the Fa- 
ther Kneipp cure. These people the hotels 
with invalids. Formerly Sharon was a fa- 
vorite place for wealthy German and He- 
brew citizens and was known as "the 
Baden-Baden of America." 

Half way between Sharon and Cherry 
Valley the road passes around the north or 
outer side of Prospect Mountain, and we 
got grand valley views. The Mohawk Val- 
ley lay spread out 1,700 feet beneath us 
for an east and west distance of fully 80 
miles, shut in on the north by the Adiron- 
dacks. It was a panorama different from 
that of Mount Otsego, yet equally fine. 

I never think of Cherry Valley without 
recalling the delicate compliment of Willis 
when he said it was "La Vallee Cherie." It 

38 



is, indeed, a pretty and romantically sit- 
uated valley, famed for the terrible mas- 
sacre on November 11, 1778, when Joseph 
Bryant and his Indians with fire and the 
tomahawk spread ruin and desolation 
through the infant settlement, killing in 
all 48 persons, many of them women and 
children. In the village cemetery the 
bones of the slain were later collected and 
there a small monument has been erected 
to their memory. In the centre of the vil- 
lage is another monument, put up to recall 
those of Cherry Valley who died, in the 
Civil War. 

Cherry Valley was the first settlement 
in this whole region. It was started in 
1740 by John Lindesay. a Scotch gentle- 
man of some fortune. In the first half of 
this century it was noted in New York 
State as the residence of a coterie of fa- 
mous lawyers and politicians. Prof. Sam- 
uel F. B. Morse worked out much about his 
telegraph here. The late Douglas Camp- 
bell the historian, was born here. Rev. 
Solomon Spalding, reputed author of the 
"Book of Mormon," and Rev. Ehphalet 
Nott, the distinguished president of Union 
College, were among the early principals 
of Cherry Valley Academy. 

Two miles north of the village is Te-ka- 
ha-ra-nea falls, where a small brook falls 
160 feet Cherry Valley White Sulphur 
Springs are not far away. Cherry Valley 
creek, after a southwest course of 16 
miles, contributes its mite to the Susque- 
hanna. ! . 

Our little excursions in this region are 
ended now. Tomorrow morning we return 
to Cooperstown to start down the Susque- 
hanna. 



VI. 

THRO' THE HOP COUNTRY. 



Afton, Chenango County, N. Y., Aug. 
20. — Before our departure from Coopers- 
town today a last visit was paid to the be- 
ginning of the Susquehanna, where the wa- 
ters of Lake Otsego glide into the narrow 
channel which by and by expands to be- 
come a mighty river. 

So pretty was the spot that we were 
loath to leave it, though imagining well 
how much awaited us in the next 400 
miles. Standing long on the bridge which 
is thrown across the stream a couple, of 
hundred feet from the lake, we gazed down 
upon as pretty a brook vista as can be seen 
anywhere. Leafy trees and bushes over- 
hung the water in profusion, and some 
grew quite in midstream, with their roots 
clinging to mossy rocks. The water was so 
calm and clear as to reveal, with the aid 
of a friendly sun, the charms of the river 
bottom, and the stream seemed to us to 
have a mood akin to ours, unwilling to 
leave the "Glimmerglass" for an onward 
hurry to the Chesapeake. The whole scene 
was one of sylvan quiet, especially appre- 
ciated by most visitors because only a 
minute's walk from the noise of Coopers- 
town's main street. 

The river has the same placid beauty 
here at Afton, 54 miles below Coopers- 
town. We saw it grow as we traveled with 
it, saw it gradually spread from a width of 
40 feet to- one of 300 feet. Yet, though it 
has frequently been stirred up by dams and 
millraces, and has received the waters of 
various turbulent and noisy brooks, it still 
seems content to be serene on a summer 
day and passes quietly beneath the white 
suspension bridge which is but a short walk 
from the centre of this pretty village. Prom 

40 



the bridge the banks present the same pic- 
ture of overhanging trees as at Coopers- 
town, though the wider river substitutes a 
lake background for the brook vista up 
above. 

The river valley from Cooperstown has 
the same characteristics as the stream it- 
self. Hemmed in by high uplands on each 
side, it offered us a series of peaceful, 
pleasing scenes. The high, bounding hills 
leave an intervale of a mile to a mile and 
a half. The hillsides have been largely al- 
lowed to remain wooded, but often tracts 
have been "cleared" for crops or cattle, and 
we saw many cows browsing in the midst 
of tree stumps far above the river. The rich 
lands on the levels adjoining the river 
banks showed fine crops, and the general 
well-being of the farmers was evidenced 
by their neat homes and filled barns. The 
whole region is noted for its dairying and 
stock raising rather than for its farm 
products. 

A succession of just such pretty villages 
as Afton broke in upon the farm scenery 
and made interesting stopping points for 
our train. Streets with arching trees gave 
glimpses of well-ordered lawns and pretty 
homes. Some of the latter showed us 
where modern ideas had brought in the 
Queen Anne type of dwelling, but mostly 
they were of the two-storied, comfortable- 
looking type general in Central New York, 
usually painted white, with green blinds. 

These villages occurred with regularity 
every three or four miles— Milford, Port- 
landville, Colliersville, Oneonta, Otego, 
Wells Bridge, Unadilla, Sidney, Bain- 
bridge and Afton. They all have flour- 
mills, sawmills and small factories and are 
all typical villages save Oneonta and Sid- 
ney. These two have been pushed ahead 
by railroad industry, the former decidedly 
more than the latter. 

Two railroads link these various Susque- 
hanna villages and towns, and have con- 
tributed largely to their growth in the last 
30 years. From Cooperstown to Colliers- 
ville, 16 miles, we were carried by the 
Cooperstown and Charlotte Valley Rail- 
road, a small road whose building was due 
to the former progressive spirit of Coop- 

41 



erstown citizens. Then we met the Al- 
bany and Susquehanna division of the Del- 
aware and Hudson Railroad, which strikes 
the Susquehanna at Colliersville, where 
the river bends to the southwest, and runs 
with the river to Nineveh, below Afton, 
where it aims across to Binghamton. It 
is part of a short through route from Bos- 
ton to the West, and has frequent "flyers" 
and fast trains. Its course is mainly on 
the west bank of the river. 

The trip from Cooperstown as far as 
Oneonta was emphatically a journey 
through the hop country. This is the hop- 
picking season and the groups at work 
amid myriads of tall poles added zest to 
our sightseeing. Sometimes hundreds of 
acres were given up to the picturesque 
hop vines, while every farm owner along 
the river had at least an acre or two. 

The hopflelds were very inviting. During 
the summer the green and leafy vines had 
crept up the myriads of poles and across 
interlacing strings until the rows before 
being picked seemed like a vast festoon, 
an idyllic contribution to some great har- 
vest festival. They were so charming jis 
to make me appreciate the spirit of the 
writer who said there is "flippancy in the 
name and nature of the vine, as gay and 
debonair to the end it tosses its light 
sprays." All of which is quite foreign to 
the thought of another, a temperance mor- 
alist, who turned his head away when trav- 
ersing these fields and tried to avoid the 
"sleepy aroma of the sun-steeped hops," 
because it made him "ashamed" that such 
pretty vines should be intended for "the 
base uses of the makers of beer." 

Five counties here in Central New York 
produce one-half of the 50,000,000 pounds 
of hop used in this country or exported 
abroad. Cooperstown and Oneonta are the 
chief trade centres for that part of the 
region around and below Lake Otsego. The 
time for picking is when the tiny cones i<n 
the vines lose their green and take on a 
yellow tinge that distinguishes them from 
the greW of the fig-like leaves. This usu- 
ally occurs in the latter part of August. 

Hop-picking is a season for frolic as well 
as work. The hop-raiser needs much help 

42 



to get his crops gathered before they get 
too ripe, and even if he has but one or two 
acres planted with the vines, he can make 
use of a score or more persons, while on 
some of the larger farms as many as 1,000 
or 1,200 persons find temporary employ- 
ment. 

Fifty years ago the country folk had the 
frolic to themselves. Harvesting was over 
and there was nothing to hinder the hop 
fields from becoming centres of merriment 
and neighborhood reunions. Nowadays the 
rustic workers find themselves elbowed b3* 
young men, young women or whole fami- 
lies from Albany or Troy, or even from 
New York. In fact, it has become as cus- 
tomary for working people of those cities 
to "go a hopping" at this season as for 
members of another section of society to 
go to seaside or mountains, and for similar 
reasons — relaxation and health. 

The armies of hop-pickers live in rough 
barracks or tents on the farms of their 
employers, often bringing their own cook- 
ing utensils and bedding and having a 
genuine outing. The scenes which take 
place in and arotind these farm encamp- 
ments recall in many ways the large truck 
farms near great cities during the berry- 
picking season. Many restraints are 
thrown off and there is for the time being 
a perfect indifference to most of the usages 
and conventions of civilization. In fact, 
this gypsy life has led to many grave dis- 
cussions of morality and to various plans 
for attempting to check the coarser ele- 
ments of the frolic. Some hop-raisers have 
gone to considerable expense to provide 
adequate accommodations and prevent the 
crowding which so often prevails in these 
farm tenements. Others have laid down 
stringent rules for the conduct of their 
employes. I am informed, however, that 
the really disreputable class is a weak mi- 
nority among the hop-pickers, and is large- 
ly made up of "tramps." 

When the day's work is done the en- 
campments are stirred with life. Many 
are busy getting supper, and camp fires or 
slender chimneys send up smoke against 
the sunset, while the clatter of dishes is 
intermingled with laughter and chaffing 

43 



and discussions of the day's work. When 
night falls the scene is still more pic- 
turesque, for the orange light of the out- 
door fires adds gorgeous color tints to the 
sun-browned faces. Presently the young- 
er folk begin a dance, usually in a vacant 
corner of the house used for drying hops. 
This is kept up until an hour when it is 
almost unnecessary to go to bed before be- 
ginning another day's work. The side- 
steps and flourishes and the style of waltz- 
ing would doubtless convulse the soul 
trained only in Professor So-and-So's select 
academy in a big city, but the merriment 
and good-nature of the dancers show how 
they enjoy it. 

That is one side of the picture. A day 
in the fields shows the other. Men work 
ahead of the pickers down the long ave- 
nues of poles, cutting the vines to some 
feet from the ground and loosening them 
from the strings and poles, so that it will 
be an easy matter for the pickers, who 
work seated around boxes or bins, to get 
the hops from off the vines without letting 
the leaves and stems fall in. When the 
boxes or bins are full they are measured, 
credit given to the pickers, the hops emp- 
tied into huge bags and carted off to the 
drying house or kiln. Thus the whole field 
is an animated scene, the different groups 
vying with each other to work ahead in 
their particular rows, and laughing and 
chatting as they push onward, stripping the 
field. To keep off the noonday sun many 
sit beneath temporary canvas awnings. 

A field picked over is probably a more 
dispiriting sight than any other harvest- 
ing picture. The poles and strings have 
been stripped of festoons, hop and leaf. 
The ground has been trampled down, and 
on it are many withered and withering 
branches and stems, torn down to pluck 
the only marketable bit, and entirely ruin- 
ing the charm of the field before the in- 
vasion. 

The hop fields were not the only places 
to attract us in coming here from Coop- 
ei'stown. Five miles south of Cooperstown 
is Hartwick Seminary, a Lutheran theo- 
logical school in a little village, with a his- 
tory of 84 years. Its founder was Jobu 

44 



Christopher Hartwick, a native of Saxe- 
Gotha, Germany, a man of much talent, 
but also of much eccentricity. Coming to 
this country to take charge of a Lutheran 
congregation on the Hudson, he soon gave 
this up and began a wandering life through 
several colonies. One of the results of his 
travels was his purchase from the Mo- 
hawk Indians of a big tract in and around 
what is now the seminary. When he died, 
in 1700, he left his property for the educa- 
tion of young men for the ministry. The 
bequest was used privately until 1815, 
when the seminary was started. The pres- 
ent value of its buildings is about $30,000, 
and of its endowment about $35,000, so 
that its sphere is necessarily much con- 
tracted. 

Indian stories by the dozen are told by 
those familiar with this upper portion of 
the Susquehanna. Near Colliersville, for 
instance, was an Indian village. Where 
Schenevus creek joins the river Col. John 
Harper surprised a party of Indians about 
to attack his settlement of Harpersfield. 
Where Charlotte river and the Susque- 
hanna meet was the home of "Murphy, 
scout and Indian terror," a backwoods- 
man whose rifle made him a noted man. 
The town of Oneonta was once the Indian 
village of Onahrieton. Otego was an 
Indian orchard and burial place, and half a 
mile below Wells' Bridge there are still 
traces of a lead mine which was worked 
by the Indians. 

A most important historical interest at- 
taches to Sidney, or Sidney Plains, 43 miles 
below Gooperstown, at the junction )f the 
Unadilla river. It was, during the Revolu- 
tion, the headquarters for the predatory 
incursions of that noted Indian leader, 
Joseph Brant, or Thayendeaga. Historians 
have proven that Brant was here when he 
was accused of directing the massacre at 
Wyoming, and here General Herkimer Had 
an important but fruitless conference with 
him in July, 1777. Brant had made de- 
mands for cattle and provisions upon the 
infant settlement which had been begun 
here in 1773 by Rev. William Johnston, 
the white pioneer of the Upper Susque- 
hanna. General Herkimer marched here 

45 



with a regiment of militia, was met by 
Brant, tried to persuade him to join the 
Revolutionists instead of the British, and 
was refused menacingly and curtly. A 
violent storm broke up the conference. 

Near the town of Sidney is an old In- 
dian fort, about three acres in extent, in- 
closed by mounds of earth and surrounded 
by a ditch. 

Sidney is the point where the New York, 
Ontario and Western Railroad crosses the 
Susquehanna Valley. This makes the 
town an important shipping centre for 
freight, especially dairy products. It is 
200 miles from New York city. 

Oneonta is a town of rapid growth. 
Thirty years ago it had 1,000 persons, now 
it has 10,000. The Delaware and Hudson 
Railroad has done this largely by locating 
its shops here and by making it a division 
headquarters where 500 trainmen start 
out on their work. Many manufactures 
have sprung up, among them a piano 
works, and the enterprise of its business 
men has won for the town a State Normal 
School, housed in a large brick pile at the 
west end of Maple street and now begin- 
ning its eleventh year. 

The town bids fair to have more op- 
portunities for growth in the near future, 
as it is to become the western terminus 
of the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, 
which runs through the heart of the 
Catskills from Rondout. Its present 
terminus is Bloomville, but it is expected 
to be operating to Oneonta by December. 
Collis P. Huntington, the railroad mag 
nate, was born in Oneonta, and his 
sumptuously furnished private car, Otsego, 
was sidetracked at the station, as he is 
now on a visit to relatives residing there. 

The high hills across the river from 
Otego used to be called "Johnson's Dream- 
land," and it is related that an Indian 
chief known as Hendricks was forced to 
give them to Sir William Johnson, the 
noted Indian agent, in this manner: Hen- 
dricks told Sir William one day that he 
had the night before dreamed that Sir 
William had given him a certain flashy 
suit of clothes. Sir William gave the 
clothes to the chief, but in a few weeks 

46 



he, too, bad his dream, and he told Hen- 
dricks that he had dreamed that Hendricks 
had given him a deed to this tract. The 
Indian grunted, signed the deed, and pres- 
ently said: "Me no dream no more." 

Afton and Bainbridge were both what 
is known as "Vermont Sufferers' Lands," 
granted by New York to recompense those 
who had vainly upheld New York's share 
of the border warfare over the Green 
Mountain State. Descendants of many of 
the first settlers still live on the old farms. 

Afton is a healthy place and has a oon- 
stantly growing stream of summer visit- 
ors. There are several pretty walks and 
drives from the village, as we found to- 
day. Four miles southeast on a stage 
road to Deposit is Vallonia Springs, whose 
hotel has many boarders in the "heated 
term." The waters contain sulphur, 
magnesia and iron, are strongly prophylac- 
tic and are efficient in cutaneous diseases. 
Personally we found the water much more 
palatable than that at Richfield, because 
less strong. 

One mile north of Afton is Afton Lake, 
a circular sheet of water covering about 
40 acres. It has no apparent inlet or out- 
let, but as it is near the Susquehanna 
and 30 feet above it, it probably drains 
underground into the river. Its wooded 
shore is a favorite place for picnics. 

Glen Afton is a pretty spot, romantic but 
not requiring much exertion to sec its 
beauties. It is about half a mile long, 
with rocky cliffs rising from 40 to 60 feet 
above a little creek. In some places one 
has to step on rocks in the stream, in 
others to pass along a shelf in the side of 
the cliff. The creek is one which wanders 
through the upper end of the village, and 
is called Bump's creek, after a pioneer set- 
tler. 

I have always thought Afton a romantic 
name, and mentally praised the Aftonians 
for selecting it. But an old lady today 
gave me a different story. "We used to 
belong to Bainbridge," she said, "and 
when we separated we determined to be 
ahead on all alphabetical lists by haviug 
a name beginning with an A." That's not 
so romantic. 

47 



VII. 

WHERE MORMONISM BEGAN. 



BlNGHAMTON, BROOME COUNTY, N. Y., 

Aug. 22.— It is very easy for me to compre- 
hend now why people fall so naturally into 
the belief that the Indians named this 
river Susquehanna because that meant 
"long, crooked stream." We have just come 
around the so-called "Great Bend." 

The Delaware and Hudson Railroad, 
which leaves the Susquehanna below Nine- 
veh and heads for Binghamton by a more 
direct path, gets here in 20 miles; while the 
river, continuing southward from Nineveh, 
enters Pennsylvania for a few miles, then 
suddenly sweeps around to the northwest, 
passes the towns of Susquehanna and 
Great Bend and to reach Binghamton re- 
quires 40 more miles than did the railroad 
surveyors. 

If you will look at any map of New York 
and Pennsylvania you will see that there 
are two "greater bends" than the one 
which we have just traversed. After con- 
tinuing west from Binghamton for forty 
mik j s the Susquehanna is joined by its larg- 
est tributary, the Chemung, and there tutus 
sharply to the southeast, leaving New York 
State for good and making for the coal 
town of Pittston, where there is again a 
sharp bend to the southwest, after which 
the last sharp bend is made at Northum- 
berland, 80 miles from Pittston. North- 
umberland is the point where the West 
Branch comes into the main stream and 
below there the united river flows in a 
general southeasterly direction past Har- 
risburg and on to the Chesapeake bay. 

From a point east of Binghamton across 
Pennsylvania to Pittston, as the birds ' 
would fly, is not more than 40 miles, while 
the wide western sweep of the river makes 

48 



its curve at least 150 miles. Again from 
Athens, at the coming in of the Chemung, 
south to Northumberland, at the coming in 
of the West Branch, is 70 miles by air line. 
By the river it is 150. These are broader 
bends than the one up above here, but were 
probably not as evident to the generation 
which named the first. 

From Afton as far as the town of Sus- 
quehanna we were in a region abounding 
in scenes in the early career of Joseph 
Smith, the founder of Mormonism. At 
Afton he attended a district school and 
was later tried for fraud. At Nineveh he 
held the first meetings of those whom he 
had converted. Near Susquehanna was the 
home of the young woman whom he mar- 
ried, and in an outbuilding upon her 
father's farm he "translated" the Book 
of Mormon from his "golden plates." 

The stories which have been handed 
down concerning his operations along the 
Susquehanna are not tinctured by any 
reverence for him or his creed. Most of 
them are centred around certain clairvoy- 
ant powers which he claimed to exercise in 
finding buried treasure. He operated by 
means of a mysterious stone, described as 
being about the size of an egg, of the 
shape of a shoe, and of an irregular green 
hue, with brown spots on it. This stone 
he covered with his hat and held in front 
of his face and in that way claimed to be 
able to see things denied to others. Many 
farmers in the Susquehanna Valley were 
deluded into spending considerable sums in 
digging for the gold which Smith pre- 
tended to see, but which was never found, 
either because of some "powerful enchant- 
ment" or because the diggers had vio- 
lated the prophet's injunction and not kept 
a still tongue. 

On a farm on the north side of the river 
a little west of Susquehanna there is a 
big hole, perhaps 20 feet deep and 150 
feet in circumference. This was the chief 
spot of Smith's digging, though he per- 
suaded other parties to work in other 
places. In this big venture he interested 
Oliver Harpur, a well-known farmer of 
Harpursville, N. Y. A straggling Indian 

49 



had told Smith, so he said, there was a 
treasure buried there, and with the aid 
of his "seeing stone" he so aroused Har- 
pur's cupidity that the latter "put up" 
liberally, and 14 men were employed to 
dig, working night and day in relays. 
After awhile Harpur became discouraged, 
but "Joe" declared there was an enchant- 
ment about the place which could only be 
removed by killing a perfectly white dog 
and sprinkling its blood over the ground. 
A white dog could not be found, so Smith 
suggested that a white sheep might do, 
and the digging was continued. Of course, 
nothing was found, but Smith plausibly 
got out of it by saying that he was sure 
the Almighty was displeased with them 
for trying to palm oif a white sheep as a 
white dog. When the digging stopped Har- 
pur had put in all about $2,000 into this 
"hole in the ground." 

Not far from the scene of the digging 
was the homestead of Smith's wife. Her 
father was Isaac Hale, who had settled 
there 'as early as 1787 and who for 50 
years was noted as a hunter. Smith board- 
ed at the Hale home while directing Har- 
pur' s digging, and not long after asked 
permission to marry Emma Hale. This 
was refused, but in February, 1826, the 
couple eloped, and for three years there- 
after Smith made his home with Hale, 
much to the latter's disgust. 

Shortly after his marriage Smith showed 
his father-in-law a box which he said con- 
tained "a wonderful book on golden 
plates." He had not then, it appears, con- 
ceived his subsequent statements that an 
angel had appeared to him and revealed 
the place where the plates were buried, 
on a hill in Manchester, X. Y. He had 
brought the box to Hale's home from his 
former home in Palmyra, N. Y. To all 
who betrayed a curiosity to see the plates 
he explained that the first to look at them 
should be a young child. This angered 
Hale, who ordered Smith to remove the 
box from his house. It is said the box 
was then concealed in a woods on the 
farm. In a few months Smith began to 
translate the book. This was done in a 



50 



little building which Hale had used for 
dressing deerskins. It is now the rear end 
of an old farmhouse on the hillside op- 
posite Susquehanna. Smith sat behind a 
blanket to keep the sacred records from 
profane eyes and dictated to Oliver Cow- 
dery or to Martin Harris, who had come 
under his influence. Harris sold his farm 
to pay for the publication in 1829. This 
act reduced his family to beggary and 
aroused the ire of his more sensible neigh- 
bors. 

It was said by some that Smith read his 
golden plates by his "seeing stone," held 
in his hat, just as when he was looking 
for buried treasure. But by others we are 
first told of those wonderful spectacles, 
the Urim and Thummim, transparent 
stones in silver bows, said to have been 
found with the plates. 

Smith's first proselytes were gathered 
together on the farm of one of the most 
zealous of them, near the Susquehanna, 
and between Nineveh and Centre Village. 
The stock of Mormon bibles was kept in 
a nearby barn. The credulity with which 
his doctrines were received by some is 
shown by testimony given in his favor 
when he was arrested for fraud in Afton. 
Three witnesses said they had seen him 
cast out devils. They "saw a devil as 
large as a woodchuck leave the man and 
run across the floor like a yellow dog." 

On a certain Sunday Smith announced 
that he would w r alk on the waters of the 
Susquehanna near Nineveh. A large crowd 
assembled and to the amazement of the 
unbelievers the feat was accomplished. 
Smith announced a second performance for 
the following Sunday, started out boldly 
upon the water, but suddenly went down, 
to his great chagrin. A mischievous boy 
had removed one of a lot of planks which 
had been laid about six inches below the 
surface. 

With Nineveh as his headquarters Smith 
continued active solicitations in various 
parts of New York for a year. In Janu- 
ary, 1831, directed, as he said, by revela- 
tion, he led the whole body of believers 
to Kirtland, Ohio, which was to be the 

51 



seat of the New Jerusalem. The subse- 
quent development of Mormonisrn is a 
part of this country's history. 

When Smith and his followers became a 
political and religious issue in the West, 
his opponents came to the Susquehanna 
Valley and revived many recollections in 
order to procure affidavits showing how 
Mormonism had started here. Even now 
there are those weak-minded enough to 
put faith in his tales of buried treasure 
and within a few years diggings have 
been made. 

Our trip from Afton to Binghamton was 
a broken one. A division of the D. and H. 
Railroad carried us amid an attractive 
farming country and through Nineveh, 
Centre Village and Windsor to the little 
village of Lanesboro, whence in a lumber- 
ing stage we passed around the river's 
really majestic bend and to the town of 
Susquehanna. There an Erie train was 
boarded for Binghamton. 

The scenery about the bend is bold and 
romantic. The river, prevented by hills 
from continuing southward, turns around 
the base of a spur of the Alleghanies. Sus- 
quehanna is built upon the side of a steep 
hill, so abrupt that the town is sometimes 
called the "City of Stairs." On the oppo- 
site side the village of Oakland is similar- 
ly situated. A dozen other hills and 
peaks can be seen shutting in the valley. 
Most of them are steep and rugged and 
some are made even more forbidding by 
the exposure of their rocks through quar- 
rying. Two miles to the east is Lanes- 
boro, its houses quite overshadowed by the 
Starucca Viaduct, a noble work of stone 
masonry, built half a century ago to aid 
in bringing the Erie road down into the 
Susquehanna Valley from the high hills 
which lie between there and the Dela- 
ware. The tracks are laid upon 18 arches, 
supported upon 19 piers of solid masonry 
110 feet in height and extending across 
Starucca creek and valley a distance of 
1,200 feet. Near the viaduct an excursion 
resort has been located in a pleasant grove 
by the riverside, and thither the railroad 
brings many picnickers. The river is beau- 

52 



tiful there, and its charms are more fully 
set forth from a little steamer. 

The town of Susquehanna— which now 
has 5,000 dwellers— is an outgrowth of the 
Erie road, which located immense shops 
there. These shops cost nearly .$2,000,000 
and occupy eight acres. When the site 
was first selected, in 1848, it was a farm 
whose owner had hard work to prevent 
the encroachments of rattlesnakes. Today 
Susquehanna is a strikingly busy railroad 
centre, the great shipping point for the 
coal of extreme Northeast Pennsylvania. 
A dozen yard tracks parallel the main 
lines for a couple of miles and thousands 
of empty and loaded freight cars are upon 
them. Engines puff and snort all day long 
as they tug away at long trains, and black 
dirt abounds. 

The valley from there to Binghamton has 
a rugged character, quite different from 
the fertile valleys in which we had trav- 
eled with the Susquehanna thus far. The 
hills close in upon the river forbiddingly, 
and their sides seem to say to the farmers, 
"Don't dare touch me!" This warning has 
been fairly well heeded. Of course, there 
is the village of Great Bend and several 
hamlets, but they are in favored spots. 

The vicinity of Windsor village abounds 
in Indian memories. The rugged mountains 
on both sides of the river are known as 
Oquago or Ouaquaga. (There are 50 ways 
of spelling it.) Here the Six Nations had a 
village from the time they were first 
known to the colonists. It was a sort of 
outpost whence they could command the 
approach to their stronghold from south 
or southeast. A war colony was placed here 
at the outbreak of the Revolution and the 
spot was strongly fortified and fixed up. 
When it was learned that the Indians were 
collecting there in large numbers Col. John 
Harper was sent by ('(ingress to try to 
pacify them. He reached Oquago on Feb- 
ruary 27, 1777, and had a friendly confer- 
ence with the red men, who told him they 
did not intend to join the British against 
the colonists. Brant was not there then. 
When he did come there was a different 
tale to tell, for Oquago became and con- 
tinued a general rendezvous for Indians 

53 



and Tories. Most of the invasions into the 
Schoharie and Mohawk settlements, as 
well as those upon the frontiers of Ulster 
and Orange counties, were engineered 
from Oquago. 

A couple of miles below Windsor, Tusca- 
rora creek recalled the interesting history 
of that North Carolina tribe which, after 
having been thrashed by the militia of that 
colony in 1722, migrated northward and 
for some reason was soon adopted into the 
Iroquois confederation, making the sixth 
nation. During their period of probation 
the Tuscaroras were assigned a residence 
almost in the big bend of the Susquehanna, 
where an eye could be kept on them by 
their new brothers. 

The valley all through there abounds in 
Indian relics and trinkets, human bones, 
pits of charred corn, wigwam poles and an 
immense quantity of stone clippings. On 
the west side of the river piles of stones 
define an Indian trail across the hills to 
Binghamton. 

In 1754 Rev. Gideon Hawley, a protege 
of the famous Jonathan Edwards, began a 
mission at Oquago under the patronage of 
Sir William Johnson. Edwards had a son 
of 9 years, named for himself, who had 
shown much precocity in mastering the 
language of the Housatonic Indians at 
Stockbridge, Mass. In 1755 the boy was 
sent by the father to join Hawley, that he 
might also learn the Iroquois tongues and 
become qualified to be a missionary among 
them. Owing to the disturbances of the 
French and Indian War, Hawley had to 
abandon this pioneer of Indian missions, 
and young Edwards returned to Stock- 
bridge. He became president of Union Col- 
lege. 

Another noted New Englander is in a 
measure identified with the Susquehanna 
below Oquago, though much more of a 
prominent figure in the Valley of Wyo- 
ming. I refer to Col. Timothy Pickering, 
who was Washington's Secretary of State. 
He had large tracts of land where Lanes- 
boro now is, and in 1800 he settled a son 
upon them. The son aroused the ire of his 
father by marrying a girl of the then back- 

54 



woods, but Colonel Pickering so far relent- 
ed that in 1807, when the son died, he took 
the widow and her little children to his 
Massachusetts home. The son is buried in 
Lanesboro. 

North of Colonel Pickering's land and in 
New York State 60,000 acres were owned 
by Robert Harpur. He was an Irishman, 
for some time a professor in Columbia Col- 
lege and from 1780 to 1795 New York's dep- 
uty Secretary of State. 

In the vicinity of Great Bend there are 
many localities with Indian traditions- 
stories which serve to add a touch of ro- 
mance to the neighborhood. About two 
miles east of the village the river is quite 
narrow, with high rocks on each side. The 
pioneer settlers called the spot "the Paint- 
ed Rocks" because high upon the face of 
one of these cliffs and far above the reach 
of man was the painted figure of an Indian 
chief. The outlines faded with the years, 
but the red remained, and people of a later 
day who knew not the story of the figure 
called the place "Red Rock," a name 
wbich it still bears. How and when the 
painting was done on a rock apparently in- 
accessible has been the subject of much 
mystery and conjecture. 

Nearer Great Bend the old inhabitant 
will point out a lot of gravel in midstream 
and tell you that once there was a pretty 
wooded island there, which was used by the 
Indians for picnics. The brave who could 
paddle most swiftly around the island was 
"king of the mummers" for the day, and 
all had to obey his incitements to sport. 
At a later period the whites used tne spot 
in the same way, but some mischievous 
boys in setting fire to driftwood destroyed 
the grove of trees on the island and the 
latter gradually sank. 

A curious adventure with Indians hap- 
pened many years ago to a lad whose fa- 
ther had a farm on the river's edge just 
west of Great Bend. The boy was told by 
his father to plow up an Indian burying 
ground on the river flats. The boy obeyed 
in uneasiness, imagining how he should be 
tortured if discovered at this work by In- 
dians. There had been none in the neigh- 

55 



borhood for many years, but suddenly he 
heard strange guttiiral sounds from the 
river and, peeping through the fringe of 
bushes, saw two canoes filled with red- 
skins. The fright which seized him may be 
pictured. It turned out that the Indians 
had been those who lived thereabouts and 
had come to demand the lands lying north 
of the Susquehanna and to the State line. 
They claimed that this tract of land had 
not been included in their sale to the 
Penns, but a copy of the deed, hurriedly 
procured from Harrisburg, soon proved 
them wrong. 

Great Bend village is set amid many high 
hills. A mountain called "Manotonomee" 
or "Miantonomah" is within a few hun- 
dred yards. It is a part of the estate of 
James T. DuBois, Consul-General to 
Switzerland, who has built on it several 
quaint summer cottages. The wooded slope 
also affords a site for the home and studio 
of D. Arthur Teed, the artist. 

George Catlin, the painter who gained 
fame by his Indian studies, lived in Great 
Bend in youth. In fact, his earlier years 
are closely identified with the Susquehan- 
na, for he was born at Wilkesbarre and 
spent his childhood near Windsor. His bi- 
ographers say that an inveterate propen- 
sity for hunting and fishing found full 
sway around Great Bend. 

As it comes back into New York the river 
makes a curve of which an early surveyor 
took advantage in an original fashion. Six 
farms are in a fan, their outer edges coin- 
ciding with the river's curve and all com- 
ing to one point upon the State line above 
Great Bend. 

Binghamton has surprised me. I was 
here a dozen years ago, and the difference 
is very similar to that which one feels 
when he meets, as a beautiful creature of 
18, glorious in the first flush of woman- 
hood, a girl whom he last knew when she 
was 15, painfully thin and consciously 
awkward. For so has Binghamton grown. 



56 



VIII. 

ALONG THE SOUTHERN TIER. 



Owego, Tioga County, N. Y., Aug. 23.— 
When the Susquehanna leaves Binghamton 
it comes west for 40 miles in a singularly 
beautiful and fertile valley. 

The boundary line between New York 
and Pennsylvania is but a few miles to the 
south. The river gradually nears it and 
finally with a curve to the left sweeps 
across the border into Pennsylvania, tak- 
ing its final leave of the State which gave 
it birth. A short distance across the line 
it is joined by the Chemung, which for 
many miles has hugged the same State 
boundary, though in an exactly opposite 
direction to the Susquehanna, coming as 
it does from Western New York and North- 
ern Pennsylvania. 

The people of the Empire State give the 
name of the "Southern Tier" to the coun- 
ties which embrace the valleys of the 
Chemung and the Susquehanna— Broome, 
Tioga, Chemung, and Steuben. They are 
spoken of with pardonable pride, for they 
are truly rich in resources and influential 
in the politics and life of the State. 

With the valley of the Chemung I have 
naught to do, but for that portion of the 
Susquehanna within the "Southern Tier" 
there can be no other words than those of 
praise. The country is indeed beautiful. 
The valley is broad and the hills which 
bound it north and south, while of fair 
size, have soft slopes, terminating in wide, 
table-shaped ridges. The plain between 
tlie hills gives room for thousands of fine 
farms and dairies, while these in turn 
have made way for growing villages and 
towns, of which the chief are Binghamton, 
Owego and Waverly. 

57 



The river has by this time attained a size 
where one may begin to call it majestic. 
Its water is clear and sparkling and in the 
sunlight has a silvery sheen, gleaming 
throiigh green fringes of trees and circling 
the bright islands which occasionally di- 
vide the current. It is, as another has said, 
"a swift river, singularly living and joyous 
in its expression." There are charms about 
it in this portion which make boating and 
camping delightful in the summer months, 
while the fishing in suitable seasons is of 
no mean quality. 

The graceful pen of N. P. Willis, who for 
some years lived here at Owego, was long 
ago devoted to praising the attractiveness 
of the Susquehanna. In his "Letters Prom 
Under a Bridge" he made thousands fa- 
miliar with the stream, the fields, the 
farms, the scenery, the natives of the 
Owego of that day; he deplored the coming 
of the canal and of the railroad into the 
valley, and with especial fervor made pic- 
turesque the life of the lumbermen who 
used to float their rafts by hundreds past 
his farm. 

If you will pardon me, I will quote from 
Willis his impressions of the Susquehanna 
on his first visit. With W T illiam Henry 
Bartlett, the English artist, he was pre- 
paring an illustrated work on American 
scenery, and of all the places visited Owego 
gave the greatest delight. It is evident in 
this quotation, and it was strong enough 
to bring him back here to make his home. 
Said Willis: 

There are more romantic, wilder places than this 
in the world, but none on earth more habitably 
beautiful. In these broad valleys, where the grain 
fields and the meadows and the sunny farms are 
walled in by glorious mountain sides— not obtru- 
sively near, yet, by their noble iind wondrous out- 
lines, giving a perpetual and wonderful refreshment 
and an hourly changing feast to the eye— in these 
valleys a man's household gods yearn for an altar. 
Here are mountains that to look on but once "be- 
come a feeling"— a river at whose grandeur to mar- 
vel—and a hundred streamlets to lace about the 
heart. Here are fertile fields, nodding with grain; 
a "thousand cattle" grazing on the hills— here is 
assembled together in one wondrous centre a speci- 
men of every most loved lineament of nature. Here 
would I have a home! 

58 



This town of Owego has a delightful 
situation. The little creek which Willis 
loved breaks through the hills on the north 
in such fashion as to further widen a val- 
ley already broad, and it is evident how 
the Indian name of Ah-wa-ga, said to mean 
"Where the valley broadens," came to be 
applied. The river trends to the north 
side, as if eager to absorb the smaller 
stream, and the town lies between the 
Susquehanna and the foot of a rugged cliff 
several hundred feet high. 

The home of Willis is reached after a 
drive of two miles to the northwest. It is 
about a mile from the mouth of the creek. 
The glen to which he gave his wife's name 
of Mary is still there, but there have been 
many changes in 60 years. The bridge un- 
der which his letters were written has 
given place to another of more modern and 
possibly less picturesque construction. 
Upon the farther side of the creek is Glen- 
rnary Sanatorium, a retreat well known to 
medical men and invalids. The Willis prop- 
erty forms part of the Sanatorium grounds. 

Owego has been the home of other fa- 
mous men. Senator Thomas C. Piatt, the 
noted Republican "boss," was born here 
and occupied, at different times, various 
residences in the town. The last, a sub- 
stantial cottage, was pointed out to me on 
Main street. Raphael Pumpelly, a distin- 
guished American geologist, was also born 
in Owego, and the Rev. Washington Glad- 
den, now widely known as a preacher and 
writer, set type in an Owego newspaper 
office in his youth. Pumpelly's father was 
an intimate friend of Willis and himself 
a writer. 

In Evergreen Cemetery, which is on the 
hillside above Owego, there is a monument 
17 feet high bearing this simple inscrip- 
tion: 

Sa-sa-na Loft. 
By birth a daughter of the Forest. 
By adoption a child of God. 

Sa-sa-na was an Indian girl, who, in 1855, 
with a brother and a sister, came through 
the "Southern Tier," giving entertain- 
ments to raise funds to translate the Bible 
into the Mohawk language. She was killed 
in a railroad accident at Deposit, N. Y.. 

59 



and the friends she had made here brought 
the mangled body to Owego and erected 
the monument. 

Another incident of former times pre- 
served in Owego's annals was the reunion 
by the banks of the river of a father and a 
son who had been stolen in boyhood from 
a town on the Hudson and had been adopt- 
ed by his Indian captors and lived many 
years with them in the West. The son 
was brought to Owego by his adopted par- 
ents, and it is said he parted from them 
with much grief. 

Owego in itself is an attractive place, 
with pretty streets and homes. It is the 
county town of Tioga county, and the 
courthouse stands in a green park near the 
river. There are about 5,000 inhabitants, 
a goodly trade with the surrounding coun- 
try, a public library with 5,000 volumes and 
a number of manufactures. The town also 
rejoices in a little steamboat, which runs 
up the river several miles to Big Island, 
which is beautifully fringed with trees, and 
so makes a fine picnic spot. 

You must not suppose for an instant 
that Owego in any way rivals Binghamton, 
which is the metropolis of this tier of 
counties and which has hopes of control- 
ling the trade of an even wider territory. 
Binghamton's position, at the junction of 
the Chenango and Susquehanna rivers, on 
a plain surrounded by high hills, made it a 
favored place even in the days of Indian 
trails, while in later times both turnpikes 
and railroads were compelled to seek the 
spot. It is, therefore, an important rail- 
road centre, lying on the Lackawanna and 
Erie roads, from New York to Buffalo, con- 
nected with Albany by the Delaware and 
Hudson, with Syracuse and Oswego by an 
important branch of the Lackawanna sys- 
tem and with Utica by another Lacka- 
wanna line which traverses the beauti- 
ful valley of the Chenango. Formerly a 
canal by this last route joined the Erie 
Canal at Utica. 

An early start was given to manufactur- 
ing enterprise by the water power of both 
rivers, and as this has been superseded by 

60 



steam, the close proximity of the Pennsyl- 
vania coal fields still gives the city decid- 
ed advantages. Hard coal being the fne! 
used, Binghamton does not have the smoke 
and dirt so characteristic of other manu- 
facturing places, and for this cleanliness 
has come to be known as "the Parlor 
City." This is a sobriquet which to us 
yesterday seemed applicable in more ways 
than one. A hundred miles of streets are 
for the most part broad, beautiful^ shad- 
ed and lined with attractive homes and 
fine business blocks. Evidences of thrift, 
prosperity and a buoyant commercial con- 
dition were noticed on every hand. Im- 
provements of all kinds have kept pace 
with the city's rise within the last 25 
years; miles and miles of asphalt and brick 
pavements have been laid, and a large 
number of business edifices and public 
buildings have been erected during a com- 
paratively recent period. 

Notable among these is a costly and 
really handsome county courthouse, built 
of a light-colored stone, which renders it 
doubly attractive in its newness. It stands 
on a slight knoll in the centre of a green 
square in the heart of the city, and in 
front of it is a monument to the soldiers of 
Broome county who fell in the Civil War. 
The new courthouse replaced a stone and 
brick edifice of fair size, put up 40 years 
ago, and in a way the change excellently 
typifies the alteration of Binghamton from 
a county town into a bright, modern, ac- 
tive and progressive city, destined, ac- 
cording to its friends, to become the chief 
purveyor of the United States in certain 
kinds of manufactures. 

The making of cigars is the city's lead- 
ing industry. Millions are invested and 
several thousand hands employed. I was 
told that in this trade Binghamton is now 
surpassed only by New York and Key 
West. There is also a large beet sugar 
refinery, and manufactories of leather, 
boots and shoes, combs, sewing machines, 
carriages and various kinds of machinery. 

The rapid growth of Binghamton may 
be fancied from this statement of its popu- 
lation. With less than 10,000 when it 
was incorporated as a city in 1867, it 

61 



bad 17,000 in 1880 and in the next census 
decade more than doubled itself, reaching 
35,000. Possibly next year it may be 60,- 
000. At any rate, it deserves such fig- 
ures. The city has grown on both sides 
of both rivers and, like the very modern 
city it is, has developed a group of sub- 
urban villages and towns which are linked 
to their parent by trolley lines controlled 
bj' a large street railway company. 

One of the ways of gauging the inter- 
est shown in Binghamton by the sur- 
rounding country is the frequency of ex- 
cursions to the city. In these excur- 
sions a point of special attractiveness is 
Ross Park, which is a tract of upward of 
100 acres on the hillside south of the Sus- 
quehanna, donated by Erastus Ross, a 
prominent business man, who became 
financially involved subsequently to his 
public-spirited gift. The park possesses 
pretty drives and walks, romantic ravines 
and secluded woods, a herd of deer, a 
menagerie and various amusements for 
pleasure-seekers. From its highest points 
it is possible to obtain a panorama of Bing- 
hamton and vicinity, a view which is only 
rivaled thereabouts by that from a tall 
tower which S. Mills Ely, a wealthy whole- 
sale grocer, has built on the ridge north- 
west of the city, where it is a conspicuous 
feature. 

Forty-five years ago Binghamton was se- 
lected by the New York authorities as the 
site for an interesting experiment — a State 
Asylum for Inebriates, where habitual 
drunkards could be treated and restrained. 
Friends of the plan claim that the experi- 
ment was a success, but at any rate about 
20 years later the buildings were converted 
into a State Asylum for Chronic Insane. 
They form an imposing group on a hill 
two miles east and overlooking the Sus- 
quehanna at a point near where the city's 
Avater is obtained from the river. The 
chief edifice is 365 feet long, designed in 
the Tudor castellated type of architecture, 
with many towers. There are 400 acres of 
grounds about it. 

Binghamton is also the site of the home 
recently established by the National Asso- 
ciation of Commercial Travelers for the 

62 



veterans of their class who have no other 
place to rest in their declining days. The 
building is nicely situated. Another of the 
city's charitable institutions is the Sus- 
quehanna Valley Home, which has long 
guarded and educated indigent children. 

In its history Binghamton has had three 
names. The Indians called it O-chenang or 
Otsiningo, and the first white settlers 
Chenango Point. Its present name is due 
to the fact that large tracts of land, in- 
cluding the city's site, were owned by Wil- 
liam Bingham, a prominent Philadelphia!!, 
and an early Senator from Pennsylvania, 
whose daughters married the famous Eng- 
lish bankers.Henry Baring and his brother, 
Alexander Baring, afterward Lord Ash- 
burton. The first settlers, who were from 
New England, had located farther up the 
Chenango on the west side, but Bingham, 
largely by liberality in the matter of 
ground for public buildings, induced a 
transfer to the tongue of land in the inter- 
section of the two rivers. 

In Indian times Binghamton was for 
some years the site of an alliance of the 
remnants of several tribes, calling them- 
selves -'The Three Nations," and compris- 
ing Nanticokes, from the Eastern Shore of 
Maryland; Mohicans, from Connecticut, 
and Shawnees, from Pennsylvania. But 
the region round about was mainly in the 
possession of the Tuscaroras, who, in 1785, 
after a long treaty conference at Fort 
Herkimer, sold it to the State of New 
York. Together with a great portion of 
Cenrral New York it was claimed by Mas- 
sachusetts in virtue of her royal charter, 
which embraeed all the territory between 
44° and 48° north latitude "from sea to 
sea."' Massachusetts yielded her claims at 
the Hartford Convention of 178G, receiving 
among other things a tract of 230,000 acres 
near Binghamton, which was shortly sold 
for $7,500, about 3 cents an acre. 

Daniel S. Dickinson, the statesman and 
lawyer, was Binghamton's most eminent 
citizen. He died there in his rural home, 
called "The Orchard," and is buried in 
Spring Grove Cemetery, which is in the 
northwestern suburbs. The New York 
State Bar Association erected a monument. 

63 



over his grave. Porl Dickinson, a suburb, 
was named for him. 

Many villages dol the Susquehanna Val- 
ley from Binghamton to Owego and be- 
yond to where the river leaves New York. 
Those on the soul li hank may be called 
newei' than those opposite, for the Lacka- 
wanna Railroad on the south side was 

built many, many years alter the old 
Brie. Both roads cross the Chenango 
near each other, and stay together as far 
as Lestershire, three miles from Bingham- 
ton. Then the Erie sticks to the north 
hank, while the Lackawanna crosses to the 
south side. The Erie passes through 
Union, 9 miles from Binghamton; Camp- 
ville, 15 miles, and Hiawatha, lit. Then 
comes Owego, T2 miles. Beyond to Waver- 
ly are Tioga Centre, Smithboro and Bar- 
ton. The Lackawanna touches Vestal, op 
posite Union; Apalachin, 14 miles from 
Binghamton, and Lounsberry, Nichols and 
Litchfield, beyond Owego. The villages 
mentioned on the smith hank are shipping 
points for the farmers of Pennsylvania 
across the border, while those on the north 
hank serve a similar purpose for farming 
communities hack of them. 

From Owego west there are really three 
railroads along the Susquehanna for 15 
miles, as the Lehigh Valley's line from 
Sayre to Auburn and on to Lake Ontario 
Closely parallels the Erie tracks on the 
north hank, touching Barton, Smithlx.ro. 
Tioga ( lentre and Owego. 

In addition to the merit of being pleas- 
antly situated in a delightful valley and 
beside a noble river an advantage shared 
by all -there are special points which at 
tract the traveler to several Of these vil- 
lages. At Lestershire is what is said to be 
the largest shoe factory in the world, a 
huge brick building where L,200 persons 
are employed. Union, whose charm is en- 
hanced by a picturesque Bound Hill on the 
river hank, was the scene of a skirmish be- 
tween Imlians and the army of General 
Clinton when he was on his way to join 
General Sullivan. Vestal was the birth- 
place of David B. Locke— "Petroleum V. 
Nashy," the humorist — whose father had a 
tannery there. Apalachin gave rise to still 

64 



greater celebrities, among them Gen. B. 
F. Tracy, the New York lawyer and for- 
mer Secretary of the Navy, and also the 
Rockefellers, the Standard Oil magnates, 
among the wealthiest of America's multi- 
millionaires. Lounsberry is the centre of a 
country where many sugar beets are 
raised. 

In the plain between the Susquehanna 
and the Chemung, above their point of 
union, are three lively towns. Athens, the 
oldest and one of much historic importance, 
lies right in the tongue of the peninsula. 
North of Athens is Sayre, founded by the 
Lehigh Valley Railroad and pushed ahead 
because it is a junction point and the site 
of large railroad shops. Then farther to the 
northwest is Waverly, on Cayuta creek. 
While not exactly a railway town, Waverly 
owes its being to the Erie road. It is the 
only one of the trio within the limits of 
New York. Were it not for this political 
separation the three towns could easily 
unite and form a city of no mean size that 
might in time give Binghamton a push for 
the supremacy of the "Southern Tier." 
There are close relations between the peo- 
ple of Athens, Sayre and Waverly; they 
are linked by trolley and by pleasant drive- 
ways; and in their variety of factories they 
have other sympathetic bonds, as well as 
business rivalries. 

Willis, whom I have before quoted, gives 
a capital description of the junction of the 
Chemung and the Susquehanna. His imag- 
inative fancy caused him to picture it thus: 

"A!" Imagine this capital letter laid on its back 
and pointed south by east, and you have a pretty 
fair diagram of the junction of the Susquehanna 
and the Chemung. The note of admiration de- 
scribes a superb line of mountains at the back of 
the Chemung Valley, and the quotation marks ex- 
press the fine bluffs that overlook the meeting of 
the waters at Athens. The cross of the letter (say 
a line of four miles) defines a road from one river 
to the other, by which travelers up the Chemung 
save the distance to the point of the triangle, and 
the area between is a broad plain, just now as fine 
a spectacle of teeming harvest as you would find on 
the Genesee. 



65 



IX. 

LEGENDS OF TWO HILLS. 



Pittston, Luzerne County, Pa., Aug. 
24.— There are two hills beside the Susque- 
hanna which have each been invested with 
a wealth of legend through Indian tradi- 
tion and the superstitions and tales of early 
white dwellers. 

Even the Catskills, with their Rip Van 
Winkle stories, can scarcely rival the 
mystery of "Spanish Hill," near Athens, 
nor the romance of Campbell's Ledge, 
which towers high above Pittston here at 
the beginning of the Valley of Wyoming. 
Both offer unusual opportunities for the 
genius of an Irving, and for their sakes it 
seems a pity that some one with an imag- 
inative fancy and humor such as his has 
not recalled their past. 

Spanish Hill lies northwest of the town 
of Athens, nearer the Chemung than the 
Susquehanna. It stands alone, rises about 
200 feet above the plain of the two rivers, 
is about a mile in circumference, easy of 
access, and affords a delightful view. The 
boundary of New York and Pennsylvania 
runs through its northern side. Willis 
fancifully described the hill as a round 
mountain "once shaped like a sugar loaf, 
but now with a top of the fashion of a 
schoolboy's hat punched in to drink from." 
Around the rim of the hill are the remains 
of fortifications that were old a century 
ago and whose exact age is the object of 
much speculation. 

A dread of this hill seems to have been 
universal among the Indian tribes in colo- 
nial days, and nothing could induce a red 
man to ascend it. Their traditions say 
that a sachem once ventured to the top, 
but was enveloped in clouds and smoke 

66 



and returned with a solemn command from 
the Spirit of the Mountain that no Indian 
should dare set foot on it again. It is also 
said that another chief, a Cayuga, who dis- 
obeyed the injunction, was seized by his 
hair and whirled away by the Great Spirit. 

A reasonable theory of the old earth- 
works is that they were the scene of some 
terrible bloody battle, possibly between 
the Iroquois and the Susquehannocks. But 
Spanish coins are said to have been found 
there and the hill was known to the red 
men as Spanish Hill, which would seem 
to indicate a visit there by whites in 
America's earliest history. In fact some 
antiquaries have advanced the theory that 
Fernando De Soto, the discoverer of the 
Mississippi, in some way penetrated to 
this neighborhood in 1540, that Otsego or 
Onondaga was his "silver-bottomed lake," 
and that the land of "Saquechama," where 
he experienced such intense cold, was none 
other than the Upper Susquehanna. 

If not De Soto, why not the buccaneers 
of the Spanish Main? Other early tradi- 
tions point their way. It is said when 
they were driven out of Florida they came 
up the Chesapeake and the Susquehanna, 
where they were met by Indians, who 
drove them to the top of this hill. There 
they defended themselves by fortifications 
for months, but were finally starved to 
death. Tradition, usually prettier than 
fact, also says they did not perish, but 
saved themselves in the end by the sacri- 
fice of a Spanish maiden to a Cayuga chief, 
who guided them to the prairies of the 
distant West. To make this complete we 
certainly ought to know the lady's name. 
Doubtless she was the stolen daughter of 
some noble Don. 

And if not the Buccaneers, why not be 
more reasonable and fit Spanish Hill in 
with the adventures of M. de Nonville, a 
French Governor of Canada, who in 1687 
led an army into the Genesee Valley 10 
whip the Iroquois, but was badly beaten, 
and finally retreated? These fortifications 
may have been of his construction. 

Even the redoubtable Captain Kidd did 
not dodge Spanish Hill. His buried treas- 
ure found shelter there, as well as a thou- 

67 



sand other places. In the time of Willis a 
man hired to plow on the hillside suddenly 
left his employer and purchased a large 
farm by nobody-knows-what windfall of 
fortune. Other men have at various times 
dug for Spanish gold or buried treasure. 

Campbell's Ledge is a bold mountain, 
commencing here from the union of the 
waters of the Susquehanna and Lacka- 
wanna, and continuing rather abruptly to 
a rocky, scowling summit, from which 
there is a splendid view of the Valley of 
Wyoming to the southwest, that of the 
Lackawanna to the east and of the Susque- 
hanna to the northwest. At the base of 
the mountain, nestling close to it, is tin's 
thrifty small city of Pittston, a thoroughly 
genuine coal town. 

The Delaware Indian village of Asser- 
ughny once stood at the foot of Campbell's 
Ledge, and the hill was used not only to 
shelter their wigwams but to kindle their 
beacon fires in the night hours, as they 
were wont to be kindled on the Scottish 
highlands in the days of Bruce and Wal- 
lace. 

The old inhabitants called the ledge Dial 
Knob because the exact location of its 
face north and south enabled noon to be 
told miles away on a sunlit day. How the 
designation of Campbell's Ledge came is 
in doubt. Some say it was named for 
Thomas Campbell after his poem made 
Wyoming famous, but others say that the 
name existed before Campbell's verse was 
published. Another of the name of Camp- 
bell was, it is said, pursued by Indians and 
ran out on the ledge without knowing 
where he was. When he saw no way to es- 
cape his pursuers, he leaped from the rock 
rather than allow himself to be taken by 
them. 

It has been handed down from father to 
son for the last century or more that away 
in the deep recesses of some glade of 
Campbell's Ledge is a silver mine of incom- 
putable wealth that was known and oper- 
ated by the aborigines. The legend runs 
that a farmer with a family of 14 children 
was brutally murdered by Indians and 
only one child, a boy of 14 named David, 
was spared. He was carried away and 

68 



after traveling all night found himself on 
the summit of a lofty mountain overlook- 
ing Wyoming and presumed to be Camp- 
bell's Ledge. A temporary halt was made 
and an old Indian chief, to whom all paid 
reverence, arose and, advancing a few rods, 
stooped down and removed a large flat 
stone, exposing to view a spring. The 
waters of this were conducted away by a 
subterranean aqueduct so constructed that 
if accidentally discovered the waters 
would seem to come from the reverse di- 
rection rather than that from which they 
really flowed. At the mouth of the spring 
a roll of bark was placed so as to form a 
spout and under this the old chief held for 
some minutes a handkerchief which had 
belonged to David's mother. The old spring 
was stirred so as to render it turbid and 
sandy and when the chief removed the 
handkerchief it was seen to be completely 
covered with flue yellow particles resem- 
bling gold. These were placed in a stone 
jar, and after incantations, to prevent any 
but the rightful owners from discovering 
the hidden spring, the Indians replaced 
the rock and continued on their journey, 
which was only ended six days later at 
Kingston on the Hudson, where the sub- 
stance was bartered. 

David was ransomed, and in after years 
related the incident to his children, one of 
whom, in company with several men, dug 
out a considerable portion of Campbell's 
Ledge without finding the secret channel. 

Other traditions sa,v that the secret of 
the mine was obtained by some of the set- 
tlers from the Indians by bribery, and the 
Pennsylvania archives have on record a 
complaint from the Indians in 1776 that 
"persons had dug a trench, 44 feet long 
and 6 feet deep, from which three boat- 
loads of silver ore were taken away." 

The 90 miles of the Susquehanna's course 
through Northern Pennsylvania from Ath- 
ens to Pittston is a journey that well re- 
pays. Not only is there much of historic 
importance to be recalled; the scenery is 
fine. The river pursues a winding course, 
so much so that it wastes many miles in 
its tortuous channels. Between Vosburg 



69 



and Mehoopany the Lehigh Valley Rail- 
road saves five miles by a single tunnel 
under a high hill. But there are many 
river bends which cannot be so avoided 
and to these the railroad sticks closely, 
having the beautiful river near at hand 
and offering a constant succession of pic- 
turesque rock and forest views, sometimes 
merely pleasing by their rustic charm, but 
more often wild, as becomes the moun- 
tainous country. 

Instead of following a natural valley, 
like most rivers, the Susquehanna here 
breaks through successive ranges of hills, 
the northern ridges of the Alleghanies. 
Precipitous escarpments tower hundreds 
of feet above the stream, while slightly 
farther back mountains of real grandeur 
lift their heads. This sort of scenery is 
entered upon almost as soon as the train 
crosses the Chemung from Athens, but it 
finds its boldest expression around Tunk- 
hannock, 23 miles above Pittston. The 
alternate sections of hills, with their inter- 
vening valleys, afford a charming variety 
of landscape. The rich bottom lands be- 
side the river, especially where the moun- 
tain streams come in, are fertile farms. 
Towns with their white spires occur every 
half-dozen miles — To wanda, Wyalusing and 
Tunkhannock are the largest— but when 
they are out of sight there are many wilder 
scenes than the fancy would picture in a 
region settled for more than a centurj-. In 
fact, with the prevalence of Indian names, 
it was almost possible to imagine one's 
self a hardy pioneer, were it not for the 
fact that one was traveling at the rate of 
50 miles an hour on a luxurious train of the 
Lehigh Valley Road. 

This portion of the river has an especial 
charm for those fond of boating, fishing 
and camping. We saw several dozen white 
tents along the banks from Athens to 
Pittston, and upon the river during the 
day counted no less than 300 small boats. 
Most of their occupants were busily en- 
gaged in fishing, but some were canoes 
heading down stream in a way to indicate 
that they were being used for more than 
an afternoon's outing. I also saw two com- 
fortable houseboats with jolly parties 

70 



aboard. I am told that from Binghamton 
to Pittston or to Wilkesbarre is a favorite 
jouruey for canoe or houseboat. The scen- 
ery is certainly beautiful and the river 
more free from rapids than farther down. 
I envied the travelers by water. 

For the fishermen the river abounds in 
black bass and Susquehanna salmon or 
wall-eyed pike, while the trout fishing of 
the mountain streams is commended. For 
the man with a gun the hills back of the 
river furnish rabbits, quail, woodcock, squir- 
rels and grouse. In the wilder portions an 
occasional deer, bear or wildcat is seen, 
while those who enjoy fox hunting will 
find sufficient numbers of these crafty ani- 
mals to give their hounds plenty of runs. 

The Indian history of this part of the 
river has many singular features. When 
the white people first began to visit it 
Athens— then called Diahoga, later Tioga 
Point— was the foretown of the Iroquois, 
the southern gate of the Confederacy— its 
south door, through which, or by the Mo- 
hawk, all strangers must apply to enter or 
be treated as spies and enemies. The Sen- 
ecas guarded it, and here was stationed a 
sachem whose business it was to examine 
visitors. To that point all paths led. 

The Indian and Tory forces which were to 
raid the Valley of Wyoming had Tioga Point 
for their rendezvous and returned there a 
month after the massacre. Queen Esther, 
who figured so notoriously in the massacre, 
ruled a village on the present site of Mi- 
lan, three miles below Athens, and many 
of the Indians in the raiding force came 
from there. In the autumn of that year 
Colonel Hartley, with 400 soldiers, went 
overland from Muncy, on the West Branch, 
by way of Lycoming and Towanda creeks, 
and burned the Indian villages at Tioga 
Point, Queen Esther's Town, Sheshequiu 
and Wyalusing. 

In the following summer Tioga Point was 
the headquarters for Gen.. John Sullivan's 
famous expedition against the Iroquois. 
Marching up the river bank, from Wilkes- 
barre, with boats in midstream carrying 
supplies, he threw up an elaborate breast- 
work at Tioga Point. Presently he was 
joined by a brigade under Gen. James Clin- 

71 



ton, who had come from Albany by way of 
Otsego Lake. The united force started up 
the Chemung. A single battle was fought 
where the city of Elmira now stands. This 
was such a signal victory that General Sul- 
livan had little trouble in devastating the 
Indian strongholds in Central New York. 
On the return to Tioga Point, where a 
small force had been left in charge, the en- 
tire command embarked on boats and went 
down to Wilkesbarre. This expedition w T as 
important in American history because of 
its results. It broke the backbone of the 
Iroquois' power. 

In 1790 Tioga Point was again the scene 
of an interesting historical event. The 
Indians, true to their alliance, continued 
to harass the pioneer settlers long after 
the British had retired into Canada. Col. 
Timothy Pickering, who figures so promi- 
nently in other pages of the Susquehanna's 
story, was sent to Tioga Point by President 
Washington. Five hundred Indians ac- 
cepted his invitation to a conference, 
among whom the most noted were Red 
Jacket and Cornplanter. Joseph Brant did 
not attend and used his influence against 
the conference, but Colonel Pickering was 
so far successful in conciliating the In- 
dians that a formal treaty was entered 
into the following year at Elmira. The 
site of the big pow-wow in Athens is point- 
ed out behind an Episcopal Church. 

Colonel Pickering was greatly aided in 
pacifying the Indians by the exertions of 
Matthias Hollenback, subsequently a judge 
in Wilkesbarre, but most widely known as 
a trader with big interests. Hollenback 
had a chain of trading posts or stores up 
the Susquehanna and across to Niagara, in- 
cluding a large depot at Athens. He had the 
esteem of every Indian and white pioneer 
of the then vast wilderness, and even 
after a fortune had been made he pre- 
served the same simplicity in his habits. 
He was an intimate friend of that other 
great American trader, John Jacob As- 
tor, and it is said that a trip which Astor 
took with him in 1786 up the Susquehanna 
fiist opened Astor's eyes to the possibili- 
ties of the fur trade of Canada and the 
Northwest. It is also said that Hollenback 

72 



saved Astor's life on this journey. The two 
were fording a stream, when Astor became 
dizzy and would have gone under had not 
his companion hit him under the chin, and 
cried: "Look up, Astor!" 

Other well-known men are associated 
with Athens. Charles Carroll of Carroll- 
ton, last surviving signer of the Declaration 
of Independence, owned much land there. 
Stephen Foster, the writer of plaintive ne- 
gro melodies, attended the Athens Acad- 
emy. Col. Ethan Allen, the Green Moun- 
tain hero, lived there for some months, hav- 
ing been persuaded by Col. John Franklin 
to take a hand in the later stages of the 
bloody contest which was waged by Penn- 
sylvania and Connecticut for the posses- 
sion of Wyoming Valley and all this part of 
the Susquehanna. Colonel Franklin, who 
was the leader of those who held Connecti- 
cut tities, actually dreamed of making a 
separate State out of Northeastern Penn- 
sylvania and induced Allen and other mak- 
ers of Vermont to settle with him for that 
purpose. After the struggle was ended, 
Franklin, who had taken part in many ad- 
ventures and had been in prison in Phila- 
delphia, settled down on his property at 
Athens and lived in quiet to a good old age. 

The appropriation of classical names for 
American towns leads sometimes to amus- 
ing results. Thus it is possible, in 10 
miles, to travel from Athens to Milan and 
from Milan to Ulster. Further down the 
Siisquehnnna, below Sunbury, it is possi- 
ble within an hour to cross the water from 
Liverpool to Halifax. The latter is a joke 
my grandfather never failed to repeat 
when traveling by the two towns. 

Ulster is the centre of the old Indian dis- 
trict of Sheshequin. The present village 
of Sheshequin is on the east side of the 
river, but the Indian wigwams were on the 
Ulster side. Sheshequin, or Sheshequa- 
nink, means "a place of rattles," which 
gives an inkling of the vast number of 
rattlesnakes which formerly infested the 
entire region. General Sullivan's army had 
a pleasant camp here, and many of his sol- 
diers returned to settle the neighborhood 
after the Revolution. Dui'ing the war the 
wild nature of the region' made it a fairly 

73 



secure place for Tories, but the many who 
flocked there were gradually weeded out 
by the patriots. 

At Ulster we first began to see fine fields 
of tobacco, which is becoming a leading 
crop of Northern Pennsylvania. There we 
also noticed the first of a long series of 
bluestone quarries (for sidewalks and 
steps). Similar quarries occurred in the 
valley every mile or so of the 50 to Tunk- 
hannock. It is an important industry of 
the river towns and villages. 

Near the mouth of Sugar creek, a few 
miles above Towanda. are the remains of 
what appears to be an ancient fortification, 
which, from its construction and from the 
relics found in it in former times, would 
indicate that it was made by a people prior 
to the Indians, and probably the mound- 
builders. There were formerly traces of 
similar fortifications in Wyoming and Lack- 
awanna Valleys. One of them had a tree 
growing on it at least 700 years old. In 
other words, this fort was abandoned be- 
fore Peter the Hermit began the Crusades. 

I said of Binghamton the other day that 
its prosperity was, in a measure, indicated 
by the erection of a fine new courthouse. 
The same is true of Towanda, which is the 
county seat of Bradford county. The dome 
of a handsome new building of light-col- 
ored stone rises near the river and is the 
most conspicuous object in the town, which 
lies mainly at the base of a bluff on the 
west side of the river, where the latter 
makes a broad bend. The Lehigh Valley's 
main line crosses to the east bank, just 
above Towanda, and continues on that side 
to Pittston, but another branch strikes off 
from Towanda through the mountains, near 
Ganoga and Harvey's Lakes and down to 
Wilkesbarre. 

Towanda is a thriving as well as a hand- 
some place. It has superior advantages for 
manufactures, as hard and soft coal of the 
finest quality are both abundant in the 
mountains a few miles back, while depos- 
its of iron ore are not far away. Millions 
of tons of coal are shipped annually from 
the Barclay, Leroy and Bernice and other 
mines of Bradford and Sullivan counties. 
There ore foundries, planing-mills, an ex- 

74 



tensive toy factory and piano, carriage and 
furniture factories. There is also a large 
trade with the farming sections of these 
counties in poultry and dairy products. 
Stages run to a number of inland towns. 
In these and other ways Towanda has had 
attractions sufficient to give it a population 
of 5,000. 

The Susquehanna Valley Institute, in To- 
wanda, is a flourishing school, founded in 
1850 by Presbyterians. 

Towanda is said to signify the "place of 
burial." This name arose from an act per- 
formed by the Nanticoke Indians. Some 
years after they had been driven up the 
Susquehanna by the encroachments of 
Maryland colonists on the Eastern Shore 
they returned to those ancestral homes, 
brought away the bones of their fore- 
fathers and reinterred them here at To- 
wanda. Their burying ground is a little 
above the mouth of Towanda creek. 

David Wilmot, author of the famous Wil- 
mot proviso, forbidding slavery in the ter- 
ritories acquired from Mexico, was a law- 
yer and judge of Towanda, where his 
partner was Galusha A. Grow, another 
eminent son of Pennsylvania. Wilmot lies 
buried in a pretty cemetery on the bluff 
overhanging the town, and on his tomb is 
inscribed the words of his celebrated sug- 
gestion: "Neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude shall ever exist in any part of 
said territory except for crime, whereof 
the party shall first be duly convicted." 

John T. Trowbridge, the novelist, in a 
little record of travel humorously called 
"A Carpet Bagger in Pennsylvania," 
speaks with delight of Towanda, calling it 
"a bright, brisk child of the hills, lying in 
the lap of a lovely valley." Continuing, 
Mr. Trowbridge says: 

Mountainous bluffs confront it, mirroring their 
precipitous lichen-tinted crags and clinging for- 
ests (many-hued in autumn) in the river, which 
here spreads out in a lake-like expanse above the 
dam and tumbles noisily and foamingly down into 
a wide-sweeping shallow flood below. Mountains 
rise behind the town also, with long lines of 
boundary fence curving like belts over their ample 
shoulders. The checkered farms, dark squares of 
plowed land and brown pastures and gray stub- 

75 



ble fields, contrasting with the delicate green squares 
of tender young wheat-clothe their giant forms in 
true highland plaids. Agriculture has shaven these 
hills to their very crowns, leaving only here and 
there a tuft of woods for a scalplock. 

Mr. Trowbridge also tells a marvelous 
snake story. Back on Rattlesnake Moun- 
tain, he says, there lived an old man who 
became convinced that rattlers could be 
sold at a profit to menageries, and so col- 
lected a large number of them in the attic 
of his hovel. One dark night he and his 
wife were awakened by sounds, and be- 
came convinced that the snakes had found 
a crack in the ceiling and were dropping 
down into his bedroom. Their lamp was 
some distance from the bed, but bv push- 
ing his bare feet carefully, so as not to an- 
ger the reptiles, the man made a light and 
saw the floor full of the slimy things, while 
others were each moment dropping from 
above. The rest of the night was spent in 
collecting and securely penning the assort- 
ment, and the next day they were shipped 
down the Susquehanna in a big box labeled 
"Glas Handl With Cair." Strange to say 
the old man had shrewdly hit upon a goo'd 
thing and got a large price for the lot. 

Wysox, which is five miles below To wan- 
da, and the name of which is said to sig- 
nify "canoe harbor," was the scene of an 
exploit prominent in the pioneer annals of 
the Susquehanna. Moses Van Campen had 
been captured at his home, near Danville, 
by a party of nine redskins. When they 
were encamped for the night, at Wvsox, 
Van Campen freed himelf from his bonds 
released three fellow-captives— two boys 
and an Irishman— and, with their aid, tom- 
ahawked and scalped four savages, badly 
wounded thiee and forced the other two 
to flee. Subsequently, Van Campen brag- 
gmgly enlarged upon the exploit and to 
such an extent that by some the storv was 
pronounced a lie and Van Campen an Amer- 
ican Munchausen. 

After passing Standing Stone, near a 
great stone in the river, which was a land- 
mark for the Indians, and Hornet's Ferry, 
where our attention was attracted to 'a 
horse disporting in midstream with water 
up to his neck, we were soon in the midst 

76 



of a region of much interest to students of 
history. On a large fertile plain at Wya- 
lusing was the famous Moravian Indian 
mission Friedenshutten (Huts of Peace), 
and some miles above, on the west bank, 
was a colony of French noblemen, driven 
from their country by the excesses of the 
revolution of 1792. 

A large tract of land was bought there 
for these emigres by Matthias Hollenback, 
at the request of Robert Morris, the emi- 
nent financier, who was a friend of many 
distinguished Frenchmen. The exiles soon 
had a lively settlement in the wilds, with 
a bakery, a. brewery, other stores and 
shops, and steady communication with 
Philadelphia. It was their hope and am- 
bition to provide a suitable home for 
Louis XVI and his unfortunate Queen, 
Marie Antoinette, and for this purpose 
large buildings were put up some distance 
back from the river, near the present vil- 
lage of New Era. But, alas! no sooner was 
the work done than news came that King 
and Queen had both been guillotined. 

The leaders of the colony were: Omer 
Talon, a Parisian banker, and Louis, Vi- 
comte de Noailles, a brilliant representa- 
tive of that ancient French family and a 
brother-in-law of Lafayette, under whom 
he had served in this country and who se- 
lected him to conclude the capitulation of 
Yorktown. Louis Philippe, subsequently 
King of France, visited the colony with his 
brothers, the Duke de Montpensier and the 
Comte de Beaujolais. Talleyrand, the fa- 
mous prime minister, spent some time 
there, as did also the Due de la Rochefou- 
cauld-Liancourt, who gave an entertaining 
account of the colony in his volumes of 
travel. 

A romantic story might be told of the 
privations and sufferings of these exiled 
noblemen. They were willing enough, but 
they were not inured to hardships and 
could not plant a permanent colon# in the 
forests. Some moved to Philadelphia and 
nearly all went back to France as soon as 
they believed their heads would not have 
to pay the penalty. Noailles fought nobly 
at Mole St. Nicholas against the British 
and died at sea after a battle. The few 

77 



compatriots who remained on the Susque- 
hanna became assimilated with those of An- 
glo-Saxon blood and their descendants fill a 
creditable niche in local annals. French- 
town still exists in name and the township 
is called Asylum. 

The praying Indians of Friedenshutten 
have a granite monument erected to their 
memory by the Moravian Historical So- 
ciety in a field near the railroad tracks, be- 
low the village of Wyalusing. But this 
monument does not embrace the whole 
story. It does not tell how Papunhank, a 
Delaware sachem, who had settled about 
20 families of his tribe at Wyalusing, in- 
terested them in some of the truths of 
Christianity, which he had imbibed at 
Philadelphia. It does not tell how these 
Indians decided to accept the first teacher 
that came to them, were he Moravian or 
Quaker. Nor does it describe how David 
Zeisberger, the celebrated Moravian "apos- 
tle to the Indians," having heard of the 
awakening at Wyalusing, passed John 
Woolman, a Quaker evangelist, who was 
also hurrying there, and so was hailed as 
the divinely appointed teacher. All these 
are incidents of the beginnings of Frie- 
denshutten. 

Pontiac's war interrupted Zeisberger's 
labors. His charges were removed to an 
island in the Delaware below Philadelphia, 
but in 1765 they returned with others and 
a village was built in orderly fashion with 
bark huts, log cabins, a mission house and 
a church of bark logs. The bell of that 
edifice was the first church bell in the up- 
per Susquehanna. 

Zeisberger made his Indians industrious, 
cleanly and well behaved. But the en- 
croachments of Pennsylvania land survey- 
ors and the sneers and taunts of other In- 
dians hampered his work, so in 1772 he de- 
cided to move his colony to Ohio. The last 
service was held in the rude church on 
June II. Then the bell was put into a ca- 
noe and tolled for two miles down the 
river. One party went across country to 
the West branch, where they were joined 
by the other half, who had gone down the 
Susquehanna. This was the final chapter 
of Friedenshutten. 

78 



Wyalusing, or, better, "M'Chwihilusing," 
means the "beautiful hunting ground." 
At least a century before the days of Pa- 
punhank it was an Indian village called 
Gahontoto, the people of which were ex- 
terminated by the Cayugas, who called 
them Tehotilachsae and said they were 
neither Delawares nor Iroquois. 

During the 33 miles from Wyalusing to 
Tunkhannock we saw a number of rope 
or chain ferries, where a man hauling 
away on a cable moved a flatboat capable 
of carrying quite a load, and this without 
danger of being carried down stream in a 
rather swift current. At Laceyville work- 
men were finishing a new bridge, the only 
one for many miles. 

Tunkhannock deserves a paragraph as a 
lively town, the county seat of Wyoming 
county, with a narrow-gauge railroad to 
Montrose, several factories and a good 
trade in bluestone and in farm products. 
It has a population of 1,500, and is 54 
miles below Towanda and 23 above Pitts- 
ton. Its situation is beautiful. 

The Indian name describes it— a place 
where two smaller streams empty into a 
large one, opposite each other. The neigh- 
borhood abounds in high mountains of the 
Alleghany ridge, known as the North 
Mountains. These peaks have Indian 
names— Solecca, Chodano and Matchausing 
—but the two most conspicuous are known 
as "The Triangle" and "The Knob." 
Lake Carey, a picturesque little sheet sur- 
rounded by tall hemlocks and pines, is 
three miles from Tunkhannock. Six miles 
away is Glen Moneypenny. 

My last memory of today's ride is that of 
a beautiful high cascade, immediately 
alongside the railroad track a few miles 
above Pittston. It is called Palling Spring. 
The waters of a copious fountain head 
pour over a bluff a couple of hundred feet 
high, and fall with a grace deserving of a 
poet's praise. 



X. 

THE VALE OF WYOMING. 



WlLKESBARRE, LlTZERNE COUNTY, Pa., 

Aus:. 25.— I may as well bo frank with you 
and confess that my first impression of the 
famed valley of Wyoming was one of dis- 
appointment. But it is different now. 

You see, our entrance into the valley was 
made on a low level. When our train 
passed through the mountain gap above 
Pittston we were almost immediately in 
proximity to vast coal refuse heaps and 
great black, grim-looking breakers. There 
was nothing to suggest the tragedy or ro- 
mance of history or beauty of scenery. 
Mountains and high hills completely sur- 
rounded the valley, but while they were 
noble and picturesque, the only niche 
which they then seemed to fill was that of 
making a big amphitheatre, within which 
thousands and tens of thousands toiled 
hard to make money from the abundance 
of the earth's hidden treasure. 

It is necessary to climb one or more of 
these surrounding mountains to get a true 
notion of the beauty of Wyoming. When 
the valley is spread out in lovely perspec- 
tive before you. you begin to comprehend 
why Indians were loath to leave it; why 
Connecticut Yankees and Pennsylvania 
militia fought for its possession a quarter 
of a century, and why poets and travelers 
have alike sounded its charms in more than 
one language. 

You will get niany suggestions as to the 
best high outlook on the inclosing hills. 
From Campbell's Ledge, which is an ath- 
letic climb above Pittston, there is a view 
down the length of the valley inspiring and 
sublime, rather than intimate. The same 
is true of the view up the valley from the 
mountain above Nanticoke, at its lower 

80 



end— a height called the "Honey Pot," be- 
cause wild bees were abundant there when 
it was first ascended. Other persons com- 
mend the view from the mountain bound- 
ing the north side of the valley, but the 
outlook most often visited, because most 
easily accessible, is Prospect Rock, which 
juts out boldly upon the rugged southern 
mountain wall, near Wilkesbarre. This is 
nearly in the centre of the valley, and from 
here the eye can sweep up and down and 
can, on a clear day, look far up the Lack- 
awanna and catch a glimpse of Wilkes- 
barre's thriving rival, Scranton. 

For my own part, I must recommend the 
views which I obtained from a Lehigh Val- 
ley train in coming down this same moun- 
tain from a point near Prospect Rock. We 
had been to Glen Summit, a fashionable 
hotel and cottage resort, high up, but back 
from the valley. The train suddenly swept 
through Solomon's Gap and we found our- 
selves upon the outer edge, with the valley 
spread out nearly a thousand feet beneath 
us. The train swerved to the left to begin 
its descent to the plains, and from the car 
windows on the right we drank in the 
panorama for many minutes. Wilkesbarre 
was only four miles away, but to get to it 
17 miles of raili'oad grades were necessary. 
Rounding the ridge, we first ran south- 
west for half a dozen miles by a route cut 
out from the side of the mountain and de- 
scending 96 feet to each mile. Then we re- 
versed our course, and coming northeast 
through the coal town of Ashley, drew up 
at the station at Wilkesbarre. The last 
half of the ride served to dish up more 
closely some of the places we had seen in 
panorama from the ridge. 

From above, the valley was green with 
cornfields, meadows and gardens. The 
breakers and coal heaps were mercifully 
lost to view in the ensemble. Wilkesbarre 
looked like a toy village upon a nursery 
floor, and with the imagination playing 
such tricks it was hard to believe 50,000 
persons had their homes there. Other large 
towns dotted the beautiful plain— Pittston, 
miles up; Kingston, across the river from 
Wilkesbarre: Plymouth, below Kingston, 
toward the west, and Nanticoke. farther 

81 



west, at the valley's end. Smaller villages 
and clusters of homes were there, too nu- 
merous to count as we rushed down the 
mountain side. Coal towns, all of them, 
I knew, yet the knowledge thus forced 
upon me did not detract from the pleasure 
afforded by the smiling perspective and 
the general beautiful contour. 

I began to fancy myself the first white 
man who had spied out the land, and I 
understood how the report which he gave 
to his Connecticut neighbors made them 
eager to settle in such a charming spot. 
To him, used to the stony hills of Connecti- 
cut. Wyoming must have seemed the fair- 
est place on earth. The valley covers a 
magnificent stretch of 20 miles northeast 
and southwest. The plain between the 
hills averages three miles and is spread 
out in flats and bottoms of luxuriant soil. 
Through the centre of this great sunlit 
valley the Susquehanna winds in gentle 
curves, seemingly wearied with its swift 
flow from Otsego and apparently anxious 
to linger here so as to refresh itself with 
the charms of nature before passing on 
to the sea. From a high outlook it is not 
always visible. Such are its windings and 
such the variety which characterizes its 
banks that it is seen only in sections and 
often hides itself among bowers of willow, 
sycamore and maple or beside low, green 
islands. 

The mountain panorama is magnificent 
from an altitude. To the north and west 
is a threefold tier of ridges that rise one 
above another, one of them near at hand 
bounding the valley, while the other two 
peer from above with their blue tops, as 
from some other world. The farthest is 
the North Mountain, 2.000 feet above the 
Susquehanna. The slopes nearer at hand 
average about 800 feet to the top. The east- 
ern range upon which we were speeding 
is precipitous and strikingly diversified 
with clefts, ravines and forests. 

Such was the valley's intrinsic loveliness 
when the white men first came here. Think 
what a charm it has now, with its beauty 
reinforced by thrilling recollections of 
some of the most tragic scenes in our na- 
tional history, by sweet imaginations of the 

82 



poets and by memories of its sudden and 
giant-like growth when the wealth that 
lay beneath the ground first became ap- 
preciated. Wyoming is. indeed, a classic 
and household name, "suggestive the world 
over of romance and fact, beauty and hor- 
ror, fascinating traditions and wonderful 
feats of modern enterprise." Or, as an- 
other writer has put it, it is "the label 
of a treasured packet of absorbing history 
and winning romance," as well as the 
name of a valley of "sunny skies, rustling 
trees, dancing waters and frowning hills." 
This valley, nestling "by Susquehanna's 
side," was named b.v the Indians "Maugh- 
wau-wame" ("The Big Plains"). The ear- 
liest whites dropped the first syllable and 
rendered the name "Wau-wau-mie," which 
still retained the Indian sweetness. Then 
the native melody was lost in "Wyomie," 
but was finally restored in "Wyoming." 

It is not my purpose to recall at length 
the battle of Wyoming and the subsequent 
massacre. The nation's historians and 
many local writers of ready pen have made 
the world acquainted with the tragedy and 
a thousand and one bloody incidents. The 
whole story is condensed in the following 
beautiful inscription upon the tall granite 
obelisk, which was erected half a century 
ago upon the spot which was the scene of 
the hardest fighting: 

Near this spot was fought, on the afternoon of 
the 3d of July. 1778, the battle of Wyoming, in 
which a small band of patriotic- Americans, chiefly 
the undisciplined, the youthful and the aged, 
spared by inefficiency from the distant ranks of the 
republic, led by Col. Zebulon Butler and Col. Na- 
thaniel Denison, with a courage that deserved suc- 
cess, boldly met and bravely fought a combined 
British, Tory and Indian force of thrice their num- 
ber. Numerical success alone gave success to the 
invader, and widespread havoc, desolation and ruin 
marked his savage and bloody footsteps through 
the Valley. 

This monument, commemorative of these events 
and in memory of the actors in them, has been 
erected over the bones of the slain by their descend- 
ants and others, who gratefully appreciate the serv- 
ices and sacrifices of their patriotic ancestors. 

This monument is about five miles above 
Wilkesbarre, upon the north or opposite 
bank of the Susquehanna, and near an at- 

83 



tractive village known as Wyoming. The 
various sites of Revolutionary interest are 
now conveniently and quickly visited by a 
trolley line running upon a broad highway 
connecting West Pittston with Kingston, 
which I have mentioned as being across the 
river from Wilkesbarre. The trip, of course, 
enabled us to understand the battle by go- 
ing over the ground, but in addition it in- 
troduced us to a succession of Wyoming's 
attractive villages, so built up by the elec- 
tric cars that between the suburbs of any 
two the distance is so short there is really 
no country seen for the entire ride, save at 
a distance. The streets of the several 
towns are broad, well shaded and lighted 
by electricity: the schools and churches in 
them indicate a progressive community, 
m while the homes show a comfortably sit- 
uated people. 

West Pittston, where we started, on the 
right bank of the Susquehanna, directly 
opposite Pittson, is a cultured community, 
in which are found the homes of many of 
Pittston's wealthy business men. Many of 
the dwellings are handsome and some of 
the churches are costly edifices. As a resi- 
dence town it has the advantage of having 
not a single place for the sale of liquor. 

The villages and towns between West 
Pittston and Kingston are Exeter, Wyo- 
ming, Forty Fiirt, Vaughn's Corners and 
Dorranceton. In these places live descend- 
ants of those who managed to escape the 
fury of the red men. Wyoming is on the 
battle field and near the monument. To the 
north and through a mountain valley is 
the beautiful camp-meeting ground of Wyo- 
ming Conference. Forty Fort bears its pe- 
culiar name because its neighborhood was 
originally settled by that number of Con- 
necticut immigrants. In the old Methodist 
Church there, erected in 1807, Francis As- 
bury and Lorenzo Dow did much to spread 
Methodism in what is now a stronghold of 
that religion. 

At Kingston is located the Wyoming 
Conference Seminary, which, since its 
foundation in 1843 by Methodists, has 
graduated many men prominent in church 
and public circles. Its large buildings 

84 



were mainly erected through the generosity 
of wealthy men of the Wyoming Valley. 
Kingston, like West Pittston, is chiefly a 
residence town, through its nearness to 
Wilkesbarre, and many of the hitter's best 
known men have fine homes there. On the 
outskirts of the town are several large 
collieries and large ear shops of the Dela- 
ware, Lackawanna and Western Road, 
which also has extensive yards where coal 
trains are made up. 

Let lis now go back to the battle held. 
West Pittston includes the site of the 
Revolutionary Fort Jenkins, the tirst place 
taken by the Tory and Indian forces when 
they entered the valley after coming down 
the Susquehanna. Fort Wintermoot was a 
mile west and not so near the river. The 
men who built it and whose name it bore 
professed to be Americans, but were really 
Tories, and promptly yielded the stockade 
to the invaders. The two forts are long 
since gone, but in the river near Fort Win- 
termoot we were shown Monocacy Island, 
to which many brave patriots were pur- 
sued when defeat had occurred, and where 
much terrible slaughter ensued. It was on 
the shore of this little island, now so pretty 
and green, that a Wyoming resident who 
had turned Tory is said to have slain his 
own brother under revolting circumstances, 
crying out as he murdered him, "No quar- 
ter, for you are a d rebel." 

We were also shown Queen Esther's 
Rock, where the notorious half-breed 
Seneca woman, infuriated by the recent 
killing of her son, is said to have slain 14 
Americans on the night of the battle. Six- 
teen prisoners Avere brought before her, 
seated one by one on the stone, and the 
old woman dashed out their brains. Two 
managed to break away from their Indian 
captors and make their escape. The bowl- 
der is not an especially large one, but it 
stands in full view in a field not far from 
the monument. A portion of it is of a red- 
dish hue, and the credulous see in this 
discoloration the ineffaceable stain of hu- 
man blood. Around another similar stone 
the bodies of nine victims were found, but 
no one escaped to narrate the details of 
the tragedy there enacted. 

85 



Forty Fort was the stockade from which 
the patriots had inarched forth to give 
battle and to which the survivors had re- 
turned in defeat and flight. It was sur- 
rendered to the Tories on the following 
d;iy. and was the scene of many acts of 
violence and plunder, for the Tory leader 
was unable to restrain his white men and 
red men. Hundreds of Wyoming's people 
fled down the Susquehanna or toward the 
Delaware, through the swampy region 
which has ever since been known as "The 
Shades of Death." 

The site of Forty Fort stockade is in- 
tersected by the highway over which we 
rode. There are no remains of it. I was 
told that the old log house in which the 
surrender was arranged and signed is still 
standing, but I was unable to find it. 

The Indian and pioneer history of the 
Wyoming is not so well known to the gen- 
eral reader, but has great interest and has 
given many places in the valley a charm 
of their own. 

The "Big Plains" were a favorite spot 
with the Indians. The mountains abounded 
with game. The streams swarmed with 
fish at all seasons, and in the spring were 
filled with the migratory shad of a size 
and flavor unknown nearer the sea. Wild 
fruits and grapes covered the hills ana 
river banks, whose fertile soil gave a rich 
return to the rude husbandry of the red 
men. 

About the year 1750, which was prior to 
the white settlements, there was a curious 
assortment of Indian tribes here. ISear 
the site of Wilkesbarre, on the south side 
of thf river was Maugh-wau-wanie, a 
village of the Dela wares, who had been 
moved there by the haughty Iroquois. Far- 
ther up, on the same side, was another 
Delaware village on a flat place known 
from the name of the chief as Jacob's 
Plain. On the north side, in this upper 
end of the valley. Conrad Weiser, a famous 
Indian interpreter, says he found a rem- 
nant of Mohicans. A clan of the Shawnees, 
"that restless nation of wanderers," had 
a large village in the lower part of the 
valley, on the site of Plymouth, while the 

86 



Nanticokes, from Maryland, lived on a spot 
which has ever since borne their name. 

In 1742 Count Zinzendorf— the famous 
founder of the Moravian religion, a man 
whose nobility of birth was as assured as 
his nobility of character— came into Wy- 
oming to establish a mission. He was re- 
ceived with suspicion by the Shawnees, 
who thought he had come to obtain land. 
They planned to kill him, and one night 
crept to his tent. Inside, the Count, uncon- 
scious of lurking danger, was writing by a 
fire. A rattlesnake, attracted from its hole 
by the warmth, was crawling lazily over 
the feet of the good man, who was too 
deeply engrossed in his pious task to no- 
tice the dangerous intruder. The Indians 
were awed by this sight, and stole away, 
believing that their visitor was, indeed, a 
ward of the Great Spirit. 

Two events led to the departure of the 
red men from Wyoming. A curious combat 
in 1755 known as the "Grasshopper War"' 
compelled the Shawnees to leave, and the 
massacre, in 1763. of the earliest white set- 
tlers, at Mill creek, caused the Delawares 
to flee. The Mohicans had dropped out of 
notice and the Nanticokes had moved up 
the Susquehanna. 

The "Grasshopper War" grew out of a 
quarrel between the women and children 
of the Shawnees and the Delawares over 
rival claims to the ownership of a large 
grasshopper caught by one of the children. 
The men of both tribes were hunting at 
the time upon the mountains, but on their 
return the Shawnees attacked Maugh-wau- 
wame, but were repulsed by the Delawares 
with great slaughter, and finally driven 
from the valley. 

Thirty white pioneers were massacred by 
the Delawares at Mill Creek, which is a 
couple of miles above Wilkesbarre, near 
the river bank. The settlement had been 
made from Connecticut and was only a 
year old. Tadeuskund. the Delaware chief, 
had been murdered by a party of Iroquois, 
who fathered the crime upon the new im- 
migrants and incited the massacre of the 
whites. The Delawares fled from the val- 
ley after the massacre. 



87 



Several times I have referred to the con- 
flict between Pennsylvania and Connecti- 
cut for the possession of Wyoming Valley. 
It was a long and wearisome, often bloody, 
series of fights— not creditable to the good 
sense of the masters of either colony. Ar- 
bitration and compromise might have cut 
the quarrel short in the beginning, as it did 
after Wyoming's dwellers had been afflict- 
ed for 20 years with battles, sieges, barri- 
cades, stratagems, truces, ill-treatment of 
women and children, and capture and mur- 
der of the heads of many families. Penn- 
sylvania's fight was a governmental one, 
never popular with the people of the Com- 
monwealth, who sympathized with the 
Connecticut settlers. 

The conflict was due to the Connecticut 
charter, which gave the State "from ocean 
to ocean" within certain latitudes, and 
which was, indeed, a royal gift had men 
but known its value, for it included the 
coal mines of Wyoming, the oil regions of 
Pennsylvania, the fairest corn lands of 
many prairie States and a goodly share of 
California's gold and Colorado's silver. 

When Wyoming was found to be a "para- 
dise amid bleak mountains" the Susque- 
hanna Company was formed in Connecti- 
cut to purchase the Indian title and occu- 
py the valley. Pennsylvania resisted the 
Yankee claim, and in 1769 began the so- 
called "First Pennamite War." The great- 
er happenings of the Revolution interrupt- 
ed the conflict, but from 1780 to 1789 the 
"Second Pennamite War" went merrily on. 
An arbitration tribunal decided against 
Connecticut's claim, but tne Pennsylva- 
nians embittered the struggle by insisting 
upon the ejectment of all Yankees. Better 
counsels prevailed and the talents of the 
noted Col. Timothy Pickering, of Massa- 
chusetts, were enlisted. He was given all 
the public offices of the newly created 
Pennsylvania county— a sort of colonial 
"Pooh Bah"— and after many years the 
Yankee settlers were secured in their ti- 
tles on condition of yielding allegiance to 
Pennsylvania. But this did not happen un- 
til a party of fiery Yankees, angry at the 
capture and imprisonment of their leader, 
Col. John Franklin, abducted Pickering 

88 



and kept him for several weeks in a little 
hut many miles up the Susquehanna. After 
peace came, Pickering returned to Massa- 
chusetts, selling for .$5,r>00 possessions in 
Wyoming now said to be worth .$2,000,000. 

The chief points in the valley associated 
with the Pennamite War were Forts Wy- 
oming and Durkee, which were on the Sus- 
quehanna's banks in what is now the heart 
of Wilkesbarre. These were taken and re- 
taken many times by one or the other 
party. The people of Wyoming also refer 
with pride to the narrow mountain defile 
on the west bank above the rapids at Nan- 
ticoke. There a party of 700 Pennsylva- 
nians, inarching up from Sunbury, were 
ambuscaded and repulsed with severe 'oss. 

The New England form of local govern- 
ment prevailed when the Yankees held 
power. The source of authority was the 
town-meeting. The townships were part of 
Litchfield county and had representatives 
in the Legislature at Hartford. 

No recollections of Wyoming's history 
are complete without a mention of Frances 
Slocum, the lost captive. When she was a 
little girl her father was a Quaker farmer 
where Wilkesbarre now stands. She was 
carried off by a party of Indians, and for 
many years her family vainly searched for 
tidings of her. In 1833 a traveler who met 
Mocanaqua, an old Indian squaw, in a 
Miami village in Illinois, was told by her 
that she was of white blood; that she re- 
membered her father as wearing a broad- 
brimmed hat, and that her childhood home 
had been somewhere on the Susquehanna. 
She had married a chief among her ab- 
ductors, had spent a happy life and was a 
widow with considerable property. The 
traveler wrote to a Pennsylvania news- 
paper, and two brothers of Frances, now 
gray-haired men, went to Illinois to re- 
claim her. She was suspicious of them at 
first, but at last the recognition was mu- 
tual. 

The brothers begged Mocanaqua to re- 
turn with them, but she refused. "I've 
been an Indian all my life," she said. "My 
ways are those of red men, not of white. 
I would not be happy with you. Here I 
wish to die." 

89 



XI. 

BENEATH A BIG CITY. 



WlLKESBARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY. PA., 

Aug. 26. — Some writer has fancifully 
pointed out that the coal fields of Penn- 
sylvania are shaped like a huge mastodon, 
the body being the great bituminous beds 
of the central and west portions of the 
Statp. and the jaws rudely represented by 
the hard coal district of Wyoming. 

It is a monster whose clutches Pennsyl- 
vanians are proud of and would sacrifice 
great things rather than shake off. For 
God has truly given wondrous prosperity 
to the people of the State, and to the peo- 
ple of Wyoming, in these glorious anthra- 
cite deposits. 

A chain of cities, towns and villages, 
nearly 50 miles long, with Wilkesbarre, 
Pittston and Scranton as the chief points, 
and with a combined population of a third 
of a million, shows in brief measure what 
old King Coal has done to give wealth 
in his kingdom. They are all his subjects 
here. Those who do not mine, manufac- 
ture; and manufacture because the fuel is 
beside them. Tradesmen and merchants 
who neither mine nor manufacture depend 
upon those who do for custom, and so— 
wheel within wheel— all depends upon the 
"black diamond." Coal makes the mare go. 

It is said that the coal strata underneath 
Wyoming Valley average 56 feet in thick- 
ness, and that every acre, at a conserva- 
tive estimate, should yield 1,000 tons for 
each foot of depth. In other words, two 
billions of tons of anthracite are here wait- 
ing to be dug up to keep the world warm. 
Millions of tons are annually brought out, 
and the surface of Wyoming Valley is 

90 



thickly marked with huge mountains of 
black ' waste and scores of great, grim- 
looking breakers, which to some poetic 
mind suggested a fierce-looking Rhenish 
castle, but to me, a dweller in a grain- 
handling city, seems more nearly akin to a 
high elevator, only 20 times as dingy. 

The problem of waste is a serious one 
with the people of this coal land. The 
great heaps of dust and slate refuse rise 150 
to 200 feet high beside the older mines 
and extend for half a mile. They have 
broken up farming on the surface, have 
ruined many pleasant homes, have marred 
the beauty of Wyoming and have become 
a loafing place for unruly men and boys 
and for dogs, hogs and goats. Often the 
piles catch afire and burn for months, 
endangering life and property and throw- 
ing off noxious gases. To a visitor these 
burning heaps are at night a beautiful 
sight, but to the dweller they are a 
menace. Moreover, it is being realized 
that the recklessness of earlier mining 
threw away much small coal that could 
have been burned and the piles are being 
turned over to get this out. The mine 
boilers and plant are fed with it, even 
though it is not put on the market. There 
is a feeling among thoughtful men that 
Wyoming's coal will not last forever and 
that it is best to be prudent. 

Many of the mines are directly beneath 
cities and towns. This is a never-ending 
amazement to the unthinking, some of 
whom are so ignorant as to walk the 
streets of Wilkesbarre quaking in their 
boots for fear the earth may literally 
swallow them up, and much relieved when 
the day's visit is over. Yet the bowels of 
the earth are honeycombed with gang- 
ways, galleries and passages best adapted 
to enable the miners to attack the coal 
with the most ease. Ttjese excavations 
are of course far beneath the streets and 
have been planned with much science and 
calculation. Some of the mines run under 
thf Susquehanna to the other side from 
the opening, and, as an instance of en- 
gineering skill, I was told of a mine at 
Pittston which was started directly be- 
neath another which had to be abandoned 

91 



because about 20 acres of it caught on fire 
and burned for years. 

The courtesy of a mine superintendent 
today enabled me to go down into a mine 
which is being worked under Wilkesbarre 
I had planned the trip because I wanted 
to imagine how I would feel hundreds of 
feet beneath a big city, but to tell the 
truth, I almost forgot this prearranged 
notion in the interests of the depths. Halls 
and chambers "of Cyclopean proportions" 
were found after we had descended the 
shaft. The tiny safety lamps in the min- 
ers' caps— I had one, too— looked like will- 
o'-the-wisps as they moved about, and 
no sound was heard but the miners' tools 
or the report of a blast in some distant 
gallery. I felt awed in these midnight 
chambers and even a bit uneasy when the 
superintendent was called away for a mo- 
ment. My remembrance of cave-ins was 
particularly strong for the instant, and I 
was startled when a little car full of 
freshly mined coal loomed upon me, with 
the aid of a mule and a boy. Presently 
my guide returned, and with him I went 
farther into the recesses, "gloomy as the 
tomb of Thebes." The digging was being 
done in "breasts." or galleries at right 
angles to the main gangway, often not 
level, because pitched with the slope of the 
strata. Between each of these "breasts" 
a pillar of coal several yards thick is left 
to support the roof. 

When hauled up to the surface and to 
the top of the breakers, the coal is first 
dumped upon a large platform, where the 
big pieces of slate are picked out. Then 
the best lumps of large coal are selected 
and the others shoved between breaking 
tools, or crushers— heavy iron cylinders, 
with sharp teeth. Sieves of varying dimen- 
sions then come into play to pick out the 
coal of different sizes. 

Wyoming was the seat of the first dis- 
coveries of coal in America, though the 
Lehigh Coal Company, of Mauch Chunk, 
was the first mining company. The In- 
dians seem to have known the use of coal. 
In 1710 two of AVyoming's chiefs were 
taken to England and saw coal burning 
there for domestic purposes. They had 

92 



some sort of a mine in this valley, for in 
1776 they complained that white men were 
working the vein. In 1769, Obadiah Gore, 
a blacksmith from Connecticut, burned 
coal in his forge, the site of which was a 
short distance above Wilkesbarre on the 
river flats. In 1776 an arsenal forge of 
the Continental government at Carlisle 
was supplied with coal taken from a sur- 
face outcropping on the banks of the Sus- 
quehanna at Mill creek, above Wilkes- 
barre. Near the old mine the Lehigh Val- 
ley Company has now two shafts in full 
operation, more than 600 feet beneath the 
surface, and from which several hundred 
thousand tons are annually raised. 

On account of the difficulty of ignition 
beeause of the need of a draft of air and 
of a prevailing belief that anthracite was 
use less coal, it was slow to be appreciated, 
Some which was shipped from Mauch 
Chunk to Philadelphia could not be sold, 
was a miserable failure when used beneath 
the boiler of the city waterworks and was 
finally broken up and used as gravel on 
sidewalks. At last, in 1808, Jesse Fell, a 
Wilkesbarre hotel-keeper, afterward a 
county judge, discovered that hard coal 
would burn if put in a grate with a good 
draft of air. The site where this val- 
uable discovery was made is now in the 
centre of Wilkesbarre, at Washington and 
Northampton streets. It attracted much 
attention, resulted in the general use of 
coal in Wyoming's homes and started min- 
ing and the vast trade now enjoyed. Coal 
laud brought $5 an aere when Fell made 
his experiment. Now it is cheap at $1,000. 

Wilkesbarre in early times was supplied 
from a now historic mine, the old Balti- 
more, about a mile southeast of the then 
village. It was opened in 1814 by Gen. 
Lord Butler, who sold its product for $3 
a ton. In 1829 Baltimore capitalists, head- 
ed by Thomas Symington, bought the mine 
for $14,000—410 acres for less than $35 an 
acre— organized the Baltimore Coal Com- 
pany under Maryland laws and began ship- 
ping hard coal to Baltimore in river boats. 
The Baltimore mine is considered to have 
been one of the finest veins of anthracite 
in the country. A stone forest was long 

93 



visible in its depths, the trunks and roots 
of immense trees being plainly evident. 
The stump of one was placed in the vesti 
bule of the courthouse at Wilkesbarre. 

At an early day, it is said, when the Bal- 
timore mine was still rudely worked at its 
outcropping*, a party of Quakers visited 
the place. The light from without re- 
flected many hues in the sparkling an- 
thracite, and the impressiveness of the 
place so affected one of the number, Rachel 
Price, that she broke out into utterances 
of gratitude to the great Supreme Being 
for having "placed such storehouses of 
fuel amid the wilderness of this cold 
Northern clime to be preserved for the 
benefit of His people when the forests 
should be swept away and their need 
should be sorest." 

The history of coal mining is, unfortu- 
nately, replete with terrible disasters. Of 
these one of the worst was on September 
f), I860, at the Avondale mine, near Plym- 
outh, on the north side of the Susque- 
hanna, some miles below Wilkesbarre. 
The breaker burned, and there being but 
one outlet, and that through the breaker, 
208 men were suffocated. By this acci- 
dent 72 widows and 153 orphans were left. 
Relief committees were organized in many 
cities, and $155,825 was subscribed. A new 
breaker was erected at once, and the mine 
has been operated ever since. 

Wilkesbarre was a straggling country 
village for two-thirds of a century after 
its foimdation, and might have remained 
so forever had not coal wealth transformed 
it. It has a fine situation beside the Sus- 
quehanna, which is here about five or six 
hundred feet wide. As at Harrisburg, the 
street next the river has always been the 
choice residence avenue, containing fine 
and costly homes in pretty grounds and the 
leading hotels. The bluff between the 
street and the water is public property 
and has been parked, so that the dwellers 
on River street can look across green 
lawns, over the river and the plains of 
Kingston, at the blue walls of Wyoming 
Mountain. 

When Wilkesbarre was laid out by Col. 
John Durkee he made a diamond-shaped 

94 



square the centre of his town of 200 acres, 
and that has been the heart of Wilkesbarre 
ever since, though the city extends back 
for three miles southward and about two 
miles east and west. In the diamond 
stands the Luzerne County Courthouse, a 
large brick and stone structure of peculiar 
Romanesque architecture. It is one of a 
number of fine large structures. Among 
the others are the City Hall, one block 
from the courthouse, the jail, the armory 
of the Ninth Pennsylvania Militia, two 
excellent theatres, two hospitals, a num- 
ber of business blocks, the Osterhout Free 
Library and 35 church edifices, 11 of which 
are Methodist Episcopal. A conspicuous 
edifice in the suburbs is the Mallinckrodt 
Convent, founded in 1878 by Miss Paulina 
von Mallinckrodt, a member of a noble 
German family. It is the mother house of 
the Sisters of Christian Charity in the 
United States and is popular as a noviti- 
ate and academy for girls. 

Wilkesbarre has had but few vicissitudes 
since its troubles in infancy. Founded in 
1772, named for two energetic defenders of 
American liberty in the British Parlia- 
ment—John Wilkes and Col. Isaac Barre 
(as Pittston was named after William 
Pitt)— it was made a borough in 1806 and 
a city in 1871. Its municipal activity is 
shown in a mountain water supply, a Daid 
fire department, a steam heating system, 
31 miles of sewers and 75 miles of streets, 
paved with asphalt, vitrified brick or wood. 

The street railway system is a remark- 
able development, for there are a dozen 
lines, all starting from the courthouse 
square, radiating like arteries north, east, 
south and west, linking every town and 
village hereabouts to Wilkesbarre and 
bringing a population of more than 100.000 
within half an hour of Wilkesbarre's stores 
and amusements. The longest lines are up 
the valley to Scranton and across moun- 
tains northward to Harvey's Lake. 

Of still greater magnitude are Wilkes- 
barre's railroad advantages. Coal has at- 
tracted no less than seven railroads. Four 
of them— the Lehigh Valley, Central Rail- 
road of New Jersey, Delaware, Lacka- 
wanna and Western and the New York, 

95 



Susquehanna and Western— run to New 
York and, combined, give 16 trains daily 
to New York. The Susquehanna and West- 
em is the former Wilkesbarre and East- 
ern line, which runs by way of Delaware 
Water Gap and parallels the D., L. and W. 
Wilkesbarre is the southern terminus of 
the Pennsylvania Division of the Delaware 
and Hudson system and the eastern termi- 
nus of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Sun- 
bury Division. The seventh road is the 
Erie and Wyoming Valley, which taps the 
Erie road at Lackawaxen and is a valuable 
coal feeder. 

Au interesting survival of pioneer trans- 
portation methods is a series of planes at 
Ashley, a few miles south of Wilkesbarre. 
They were built in 1839 to carry loaded 
canal boats across the mountains to the 
Lehigh river and so to Philadelphia. The 
three planes aggregate an ascent of 1,150 
feet. Cars hauled by strings of horses 
pulled the boats to the foot of the planes. 
Coal cars are now run up and down the 
planes. 

Wilkesbarre's manufactures cannot be 
forgotten. Two large lace manufactories 
are worth a visit, and there are silk mills, 
four foundries, axle works, three locomo- 
tive and engine shops, wire-rope works, 
gun works, cutlery works, two immense 
breweries and many manufactories of iron, 
steel, wood and leather. There will be a 
larger array soon, with Wilkesbarre's ad- 
vantages. 



96 



XII. 

THE HOME OF PRIESTLEY. 



Northumberland. Pa., Aug. 28.— As our 
train came into Northumberland yesterday 
from the Wyoming Valley our conductor, 
pointing to a long frame house beside the 
railroad track and between it and the 
canal, said: 

"There is where Dr. Priestley lived and 
died." 

I had asked him about the home of the 
famous discoverer of oxygen and founder 
of chemistry, and I turned eagerly as he 
pointed. The railroad track now runs very 
close to the front door of the mansion, 
which was built by Dr. Priestley. In his 
day neither railroad nor canal was there, 
and he was by the river side. His house is 
two stories high, with a one-story exten- 
sion on either side, one of which has al- 
ways been a kitchen, while in the other 
was the chemist's library and laboratory. 

You will recall that in 1794, after he had 
been assailed by riotous Britishers for his 
advanced views on the French Revolution, 
the English scientist and philosopher came 
to Northumberland and dwelt here until 
his death in 1804. His life here, while 
placid, was also busy. He corresponded 
with Adams and Jefferson., and with the 
American Philosophical Society, wrote 
against Paine and Volney and a number of 
French freethinkers, upheld Biblical insti- 
tutions in comparison with those of Orient- 
al antiquity, completed his church history 
and annotated the whole Bible. His lit- 
erary work was usually done in shorthand 
beside the fireside in this house, though he 
often thought out his writings while tak- 
ing long walks in the neighborhood. 

Priestley rests in an old burying ground 
on the slope of Montour's Ridge, back of 

97 



Northumberland, a comparatively neg- 
lected spot. Descendants of his name live 
in the town, a grandson of the identical 
name having been a physician. In 1874 
American chemists assembled here to cele- 
brate the centennial of the discovery of 
oxygen. 

Another prominent man here a century 
ago was Thomas Cooper, Priestley's friend 
and fellow-immigrant. He practiced law 
and became a strong Democrat and a local 
judge. Subsequently he was a professor of 
chemistry in Dickinson College and the 
University of Pennsylvania, and president 
of South Carolina College, a man emineut 
for his versatility. 

The scenery about Northumberland is as 
pleasing today as it was when Priestley 
and Cooper found delight in it. The West 
Branch meets the main stream of the Sus- 
quehanna in a majestic way. The main 
stream is parted by an island upon which 
John B. Packer has a widely known model 
farm. A century ago this island was owned 
by Edward Lyon, another who came with 
Priestley. The united river is almost a lake 
for a couple of miles, as it has been 
dammed at Shamokin to feed the canal. 
The waters are still and mirror-like, re- 
flecting the beauties of Blue Hill, which 
rises perpendicularly from the farther side 
of the West Branch. Northumberland, 
which has 2,500 inhabitants, is between the 
two streams. Its more ambitious rival, 
Sunbury, which lays claim to 10,000 souls, 
is on a level plain on the bank of the united 
river two miles south of Northumberland. 
Hills are back of both towns, some with 
gentle slopes, some as abrupt as Blue Hill. 

Many of the traditions of the neighbor- 
hood cluster around Blue Hill. In a cer- 
tain line of vision it is possible to see in 
the rocky bluff a clear outline of the face 
of an Indian chief. It is, they say, a good 
likeness of Shikellimy, one of the most 
famous Indians of the Susquehanna, a 
sachem who was stationed at this point to 
act as viceroy of the Six Nations over the 
subsidiary tribes of Pennsylvania and 
farther south. Shikellimy was an Indian 
of noble mind, a man worthily the father 
of an even more famous Indian, Logan, 

98 



"the Mingo," who was born here and who 
later moved to the Juniata and thence to 
Ohio. Every schoolboy knows his famous 
speech against the white man's misdeeds, 
as reported by Thomas Jefferson. 

Shikellimy governed here from about 1728 
until his death in 1749. He was the friend 
of many influential men of the colony, in- 
cluding Count Zinzendorf and David Zeis- 
berger, who founded a Moravian mission 
here in 1745, and maintained a smithy 
where the red men's guns were repaired. 
The name "Shamokin" is said to mean 
"where gun barrels are straightened." 

The Indian village of Shamokin was a 
little north of the present town of Sunbury 
and near the river. It was a place of some 
size and had an extensive burial ground, 
in which many Indian beads, utensils and 
implements have been found. About 40 
years ago there was uncovered the grave 
<>f one who had evidently been a chief of 
high rank, and it is concluded that this 
was Shikellimy. 

Northumberland and Sunbury were laid 
out about the same time, the former in 
177~>, at the instance of Reuben Haines, a 
wealthy Philadelphia brewer, who had ex- 
tensive land holdings in the vicinity, and 
the latter in 1772, at the instance of Wil- 
liam Maclay, who was the first United 
States Senator from Pennsylvania, and 
whose old stone house in Sunbury, built 
in 1773, is still standing. Maclay married 
a daughter of the founder of Harrisburg 
ami his late years were spent there. 

In early times there were many predic- 
tions of the future greatness of Northum- 
berland, based upon its situation, but to- 
day its chief industry is a nail factory and 
the town has a more or less decayed, 
though genteel, look, while in Sunbury 
there is abundant evidence of thrift and of 
a variety of manufactures. There are rail- 
road repair shops, a rolling mill, an organ 
factory, a saw and planing mill, coffin, table, 
sash and door factories. Moreover, as the 
outlet of the Shamokin coal district, back 
in the hills and connected by a railroad, 
Sunbury handles at least a million tons an- 
nually. Its railroad yards are big. 

In Northumberland's quiet streets it is 

99 



L,tra 



not easy to believe that the town onee 
came within a single vote of being tne 
State capital. 

We took in the sights of the neighbor- 
hood in a few hours by first riding to Sun- 
bury on one of a number of little steam- 
boats which ply upon the river here, and 
then returning by a trolley route which 
crosses Packer's Island and passes a pic- 
nic grove known as Island Park. As we 
putted along on the river the profile of 
Shikellimy was clearly outlined, though it 
soon faded with our progress. We saw the 
several bridges that span the two rivers, 
our attention being especially directed to 
the old one across the West Branch used 
by canal teams. 

Blue Hill looked particularly bold and 
beautiful. Upon its crest, nearly 400 feet 
above the river, there stood for a long time 
a curious "leaning tower" at an angle of 
30 degrees over the precipice. It was built 
for amusement by an eccentric character, 
"Johnny" Mason, an old bachelor, who 
was said to have retired here and lived a 
hermit" s life after a disappointment in 
love. His "tower" was a point of attrac- 
tion for many years, both because of its 
view and of its danger. Some mischievous 
visitors finally loosened it from its moor- 
inns. In later years a summer hotel, the 
Shikellimy House, stood near its site, but 
that was burned four years ago. 

A marvelous tale of Blue Hill is that of 
the escape of one Marcus Hulings, who 
was pursued by Indians, and finding no 
other means to avoid capture ran to the 
edge of the precipice, grabbed a large limb, 
swung out into space, landed unhurt 90 
feet below on a ledge, leaped again by the 
same method, then jumped 40 feet and es- 
caped with a disloeated shoulder. What 
will they tell next V 

Our steamboat passed near several flat- 
boats from which men were scooping the 
river bottom. "What are they doing?" I 
asked of the pilot. "Digging coal," he 
said, and then went >on to explain that the 
pieces of coal which drifted down stream 
from Wyoming were so numerous as to be 
worth dredging. Lumps thus recovered 
were regularly used on his steamer, and 

100 



\ 



two dealers in Sunbury have a good trade 
in them. Water dirt has removed most of 
the black luster from the outside. 

We were landed at the foot of Sunbury's 
principal street, and in a minute were in 
the public square in front of the court- 
house. The east end of the square is 
adorned with a monument to the country's 
Civil War dead, surmounted by a statue of 
Col. James Cameron, who fell at Bull Run. 
He was a brother of Simon Cameron, who, 
years before he became famous, set type 
in a Northumberland newspaper office. 

The several trolley lines of Sunbury cir- 
cle the public square. The one which we 
took back northward to Northumberland 
led us through the historic neighborhoods. 
First we saw the old Maclay mansion, al- 
ready mentioned. Then our car passed the 
old Hunter mansion, a solid yellow brick 
edihce which stands upon the site of Fort 
Augusta. This was one of the chain of de- 
fenses erected at the outbreak of the 
French and Indian War. It was occupied 
from 1755 to 1765, and sheltered many fam- 
ilies. It was again garrisoned during the 
Revolution, and was a haven when the 
"Big Runaway" occurred— a panic-stricken 
flight which emptied the valleys of both 
branches of their settlers. 

The fort, which was named for the 
mother of George III, was a military work 
of considerable size, but not a trace re- 
mains except the old magazine, built part- 
ly underground and hidden beneath a 
grassy mound, now used for cold storage 
by the occupants of the house. A subter- 
ranean passage to the river is said to ex- 
ist, but it has never been found. 

The Indian village and the burial ground 
where Shikellimy was placed are just 
north of the fort site. A little farther 
on was "Bloody Spring," where the garri- 
son got water. The railroad tracks have 
destroyed it, but cannot make away with 
the stories of danger which once encom- 
passed it. A soldier was killed there in 
1756. 

An old cannon from Fort Augusta was 
for many years an object of rivalry be- 
tween Sunbury and her neighbors. It was 
recovered from the river in 1798. Muncy 

101 



had it for awhile, and in Selin's Grove and 
New Berlin it lay hidden, but the strata- 
gems of the Sunbury lads always brought 
it back and defeated the frequent efforts 
to abduct it. A party from Danville was 
the last to attempt it, and since then the 
old gun has remained with the local fire 
company. 

The 65 miles of the Susquehanna be- 
tween Wilkesbarre and this place, though 
not wanting in beauty of scenery, has not 
been rendered as interesting by historical 
events. The region mainly continued a 
wilderness until after the Revolution, and 
so escaped Indian disasters, although it 
had echoes of Wyoming's troubles. One of 
the last attacks of Indians along the Sus- 
quehanna occurred on July 26, 1782, oppo- 
site Catawissa and 20 miles above North- 
umberland. Three brothers, named Furry, 
were away from home, and the redskins 
killed their parents and two sisters and 
carried away a younger brother. Many 
years later two of the brothers were in 
Montreal on a visit and accidentally dis- 
covered their missing brother. He had be- 
come a prosperous Canadian trader. 

Of the scenery of the day's trip there is 
much to be said, especially of the first 
part, where the hills were high and rugged 
and the river narrow. The mountains be- 
low Nanticoke, which mark the termina- 
tion of the Valley of Wyoming, bear the 
same relation to the Susquehanna as do the 
Highlands below West Point to the Hud- 
son. The river cuts through a narrow 
gorge, which continues half a dozen miles 
to Shickshinny. On the right is Shick- 
shinny Mountain, and on the left Nanti- 
coke Mountain. The majesty of the hills 
so hems in the river and its valley that it 
seemed easily possible to throw a stone 
from one side to the crag opposite. Into 
the narrow space was compressed not only 
the river, but a canal and two railroads. 
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western 
hugs the north, or right, bank all the way 
down to Northumberland, while the Penn- 
sylvania Company's line from Wilkesbarre 
to Sunbury is on the opposite side. One of 
the finest series of rapids in the river is 
that called Nanticoke Falls. And on the 

102 



rugged mountain sides are many pictur- 
esque scenes. Little mountain si reams, full 
of cascades and fine rocks, drop into the 
river at short intervals. Upon a knoll on 
the south side, where the hills barely 
make room. Luzerne county has built two 
big buildings for its poor and its insane. 

The narrow mountain pass ends in a 
blaze of glory at Shickshinny, where five 
different spurs come to the river's edge and 
make their bow to each other. The village 
of Shickshinny is located in the hollow 
formed by two of these ranges, and 
through it runs Shickshinny creek, which 
tumbles down a gorge witli the echo of 
several waterfalls behind it. By some 
Shickshinny is said to mean in Indian 
phrase "quick dashing water." By others 
it is said to be "where five mountains 
meet." Both are apt guesses. 

At Shickshinny the river makes a sharp 
turn south, and so continues for six miles 
to Wapwallopen. where it again swerves 
westward. The left bank for this six miles 
is closely bounded by the Wapwallopen 
hill, which terminates above the village of 
Wapwallopen in a vigorous and grand 
rocky front, 900 feet high, known as "Pul- 
pit Koek" — "Kansal Kopf" it was called 
by some German pioneers. It is a fine out- 
look, for the mountains diminish below 
Wapwallopen, and the remainder of our 
journey was through a rich agricultural 
region: with hills, it is true, but neither 
high nor steep, and set back in a way to 
invite farmers to the intervales. 

Wapwallopen means "where the messen- 
ger was murdered," and is said to have 
been first applied after the killing of 
Thomas Hill, a messenger to Wyoming 
from the Governor of Pennsylvania. It is 
chiefly of interest as the site of big pow- 
der mills, operated for the last 40 years by 
the Du Fonts, of Wilmington. The rolling 
mills and hydraulic presses have a capac- 
ity of 1.000 kegs daily. They are scattered 
along the gorge of Wapwallopen creek, 
very much as the Du Pouts' Delaware mills 
are scattered along the Brandywine. 

All through the region the shoal waters 
offer special inducements for eel catching. 
Weirs or traps— slight stone structures, an- 

103 



gular in shape— draw the descending cur- 
rent and its finny freight into an apex, 
where the slippery gentry are easily se- 
cured. Bass and pike also bring many 
anglers to the river here. 

Berwick, which is 27 miles below Wilkes- 
barre. on the north bank, is a busy place 
of 3.000 people, kept active by the large 
Jackson & Woodin Car Manufacturing 
Works and by smaller factories. The town 
stands on a bluff and only a few of the 
houses can be seen from the railroad 
tracks. It is a\ place of attractive streets 
and neat homes. Many of the workmen 
live at Nescopeck, a smaller town across 
the river, where Peter Frederick Rother- 
mel, a distinguished painter of historical 
scenes, was born in 1817. Nescopeck was 
once the residence of "Old King Nuti- 
mus,"" a Delaware Indian, who was 
wealthy and had a lot of negro slaves. 

Bloomsburg, a town of 5,000 persons, 40 
miles from Wilkesbarre, in every way bears 
the impress of a prosperous place. Its 
streets are broad, well shaded and graded, 
thoroughly sewered aud underlaid witn 
steam heating pipes, supplying private 
houses. It has a varied lot of factories and 
is the county seat of Columbia, one of the 
richest agricultural counties of Pennsylva- 
nia. The enterprise of its people 30 years 
ago secured the location of a State normal 
school here. It is situated on a hillside just 
east of the town and has commodious build- 
ings and grounds. 

Bloomsburg lies about a mile back from 
the north bank of the river, beside Fishing 
creek. The valley of this creek is used 
by a railroad, which reaches Lake Ganoga 
and the lumber regions of Sullivan county. 

In the Civil War Bloomsburg suddenly 
sprang into unenviable notoriety by a re- 
port that up Fishing creek dissatisfied 
Northerners and Confederates who had se- 
cretly corne from Canada had erected a fort 
and were planning a movement to capture 
this part of the Susquehanna Valley. In 
reality there was nothing more than some 
disaffection over the draft law. But hun- 
dreds of Federal soldiers were hurried here 
by Major-Generals Couch and Cadwallader. 
No fort was ever found, but 45 men were 

10+ 



arrested. It forms a picturesque incident, 
occurring as it did in the heart of an old- 
line Union State. 

The great ice glacier, which geologists say 
at one time covered the upper half of this 
continent, rested its lower edge across the 
Susquehanna near Blobmsburg. There are 
many evidences of its great terminal mo- 
raine — heaps of sand, gravel and bowlders. 
There is a gravel bed 175 feet thick below 
Bloomsburg. 

Catawissa, the only town of any size on 
the south bank between Wilkesbarre and 
Sunbury, is 4 miles below Bloomsburg and 
21 above Sunbury. It is often said of a 
town that it "nestles among the hills," but 
Catawissa really does it. It is in a "pocket." 
Above and below steep bluffs overhang the 
river, while behind the town is Catawissa 
Mountain. 

There was an Indian village at Catawissa 
200 years ago, of which Lapackpitton, a Del- 
aware, was the chief. It became a Quaker 
settlement more than a century ago and 
the square log meeting-house then erected 
is still standing. It is on a knoll a short 
distance from the confluence of Catawissa 
creek and the Susquehanna. Its weather- 
beaten appearance and the evident age of 
its graveyard and surrounding trees invest 
it with a charm which is heightened when 
we are told that it was the .first house of 
worship between Wyoming and Sunbury. 

Catawissa is the point at which the Phil- 
adelphia and Reading road, from Tamaqua 
to Williamsport, crosses the Susquehanna. 
It is related of this line that its route was 
surveyed as early as 1822 with no other in- 
strument than a crude level made of tin 
tubes with vials of water, and that the 
course thus laid out amid mountains was 
considered a marvel by the engineers who 
built the road. The work was done by 
Christian Brobst, of Catawissa, a man of 
limited schooling. 

There is a large paper mill at Catawissa, 
which has been in operation since 1811. In 
this, in railroad shops, in a foundry, a 
broom and a shoe factory the 2,000 inhabit- 
ants of Catawissa find employment. 

Danville, 12 miles above Sunbury, as thf 
site of the Montour Iron Works, once held 

105 



a front place among iron towns. Its blast 
furnaces were big ones, ami its rolling 
mills annually turned out thousands and 
thousands of tons. The ore was mined in 
the hills seven miies away and brought by 
a narrow-gauge road. Now the mines are 
closed and the furnaces in ruins, because 
of the cheaper production of pig iron else- 
where. The rolling mills still continue, and 
other industries have been brought in to 
keep the population. Besides, as the seat 
of Montour county, Danville has the trade 
of a large farming community. 

On a hill near Danville Michael J. Grove, 
one of the "iron kings," built a .$300,000 
residence, which is pointed out as one of 
the finest in Pennsylvania. The home of 
another dead ironmaster, Thomas Beaver, 
has been bought by the Sisters of Mercy 
for a home for aged and friendless women. 
Mr. Beaver, about 15 years ago, gave $100,- 
000 for a fine free library. In many other 
ways he was Danville's benefactor. 

A mile east of Danville is located an im- 
mense State insane asylum, a building of 
blue stone. 1,143 feet long. Danville was 
selected for it in 1872. It has extensive 
grounds. 

Danville was laid out in 1792 by Daniel 
Montgomery, afterward a militia general 
and member of Congress. He had lived 
near there since he was a boy of 10. It is 
related of him that when he was 13 he saw 
a canoe floating down the river and swam 
out to get it, but was surprised to find an 
Indian lying flat in it, with bow and arrow 
in his hand. "Dan" jumped back, of course, 
but finally ventured to approach again, and 
found that the Indian was dead. It was 
subsequently learned that the redskin had 
been one of those in the massacre of Wy- 
oming. He had returned to the valley in 
the following year, was recognized and 
killed, while on his breast this pass was 
pinned: "Let the bearer go to his master, 
King George, or the devil." 



106 



XIII. 

DOWN THE WEST BRANCH. 



Sunbtjky, Northumberland County, 
Pa., Sept. 2.— These last four days have 
been ones of hurry and hustle. For since 
I described the meeting of the main stream 
with the West Branch, I have been to the 
headwaters of the West Branch and have 
come the length of the stream. 

While a hasty trip, enough was seen to 
enable me to guess at the wonderful fu- 
ture of the West Branch. It is just be- 
ginning to wake up, and, like a boyish 
giant, the region has not yet learned the 
measure of its owu strength. Parts of its 
course are still practically in a wilderness, 
and it is only within the decade that men 
of wealth and energy really started to un- 
cover the vast resources of soft coal around 
Clearfield. The forests are greatly thinned, 
though it will be many a day before the 
lumbermen must desert the West Branch. 
Yet in their footsteps the miners are 
eager to tread and behind the man with 
the pick is the man with money and 
brains. Cities and populous towns seem 
sure to spring up. 

The source of the West Branch is in 
Cambria county, in Southwestern Pennsyl- 
vania. This is on the west slope of the Al- 
leghanies, a high and broken tableland 
between the Alleghanies and a long outer 
ridge known as the Laurel Hill. The 
southern end of Cambria county became 
prosperous and well-settled when the main 
line of the Pennsylvania Railroad was run 
through it (JO years ago. Johnstown is in 
its farther corner, and Cresson Springs, 
the famous mountain resort, is near its 
eastern line. But the north end of Cam- 
bria long remained either in forest or 

107 



scantily cleared for cattle or for crops of 
oats, rye and potatoes. In addition to the 
West Branch, two of its tributaries, Clear- 
field and Chest creeks, rise in the county, 
and with their aid the forests have been 
turned into lumber and sent to Eastern 
cities. 

It was at Cresson that we changed cars 
on Monday for a ride of 11 miles on a 
branch road to Ebensburg, Cambria's 
county town, which is situated on a high 
ridge and commands broad and striking 
views. One of its peculiarities is that the 
sun sinks in the West below the level of 
the observer in its main street. The set- 
tlement of Ebensburg by Welsh people in 
1796— immigrants who named both county 
and town— gave it a quaint flavor which 
has never been lost, as the characteristics 
of its founders are by many preserved, and 
the Welsh tongue can be heard in homes 
and in the churches. From its elevated 
position it enjoys a peculiarly cool and 
healthful atmosphere— always pleasant in 
summer— and this brings many visitors 
The town contains a foundry, tanneries 
several factories and excellent schools. 

Side by side with these Welsh Presby- 
terians Providence early planted a vigor- 
ous offshoot of Catholicism. Loretto— the 
town founded in a wilderness by that re- 
markable man, Father Gallitzin, who gave 
up a Russian princely title and patrimony 
to become an humble priest— is six miles 
northeast of Ebensburg. The church at 
Loretto was, in 1800, the only house of 
God between Harrisburg and St. Louis, 
but by incredible labor and hardship and 
the use of means given by his sister, 
Father Gallitzin colonized much of Cam- 
bria county, established schools, churches 
and religious houses and created an in- 
fluential centre for the religion he so 
loved. Next month the people of the vicin- 
ity propose to do honor to his memory by 
gathering at Loretto at the unveiling of a 
fine statue of him. 

Many of the settlers brought by Prince 
Gallitzin were from Maryland and a vil- 
lage near the source of the Susquehanna 
bears the name of Archbishop John Car- 
roll, of Baltimore, the first Catholic prel- 

108 



ate of the United States and Father Gal- 
litzin's preceptor. 

The dividing ridge between the waters 
that flow to the Gulf of Mexico and those 
that reach the Atlantic by way of the 
Susquehanna is very narrow in Cambria. 
The waters interlock in alternate dells. 
On the railroad four miles before I 
reached Ebensburg I was shown a tiny 
rivulet on one side of the track which 
went west and south to New Orleans, 
while a similar stream on the other side 
was carried into the Susquehanna. So, 
too, in driving from Ebensburg to Carroll- 
town I was shown a barn whose peaked 
roof parted the rain waters and determined 
their journey. 

When we had crossed a hill about eight 
miles from Ebensburg my driver said: 
"There is the Susquehanna." Honestly, 
it seemed laughable to me. The stream 
was a tiny bit of a thing, half a dozen feet 
wide, and I could not associate it with the 
mighty river whose width in places is two 
and three miles and whose volume is im- 
mense. At Otsego there had been a lake 
to give a goodly start, but the West 
Branch has nothing but springs for a foun- 
tain head and grows but slowly. In Cam- 
bria county it is 2,000 feet above the sea 
level and is truly a mountain stream. 

For its first dozen miles the West 
Branch is followed by another Pennsyl- 
vania branch railroad from Cresson and 
by this means I reached Cherry Tree, 
which lies at the meeting place of the 
three counties of Cambria, Clearfield and 
Indiana, but whicb. after much talk, was 
adjudged to the last named. Cherry Tree 
has had three names. Its postoffice is 
called Grant, and in pioneer days it was 
Canoe Place. As the farthest point up 
stream accessible by canoe it was an im- 
portant spot and an Indian village was 
there. Trails led west to Kittanning on the 
Allegheny river and another trail went up 
the West Branch and across the moun- 
tains, near what is now Horseshoe Curve. 
In all early State deeds Canoe Place, as 
the best known spot on the upper West 
Branch, played an important part. 

For nearly 70 miles from Cherry Tree the 
Susquehanna courses through Clearfield 

109 



county, which only 10 years ago was de- 
scribed as '"a wide forest country," but 
which has now had its awakening. It is 
really amazing to see how the deposits of 
soft coal have caused the construction of 
miles of new railroad and the projection of 
many more miles. The Clearfield coal basin 
is at least an area of 5,000 square miles, 
and its richness is such that at places there 
are no less than 12 seams of coal of an av- 
erage thickness of four feet. Into this area 
seven railroads now enter, and almost daily 
there are items concerning the purchase of 
big tracts by capitalists or announcements 
that the railroads are ready to make exten- 
sions, upon which engineers and surveyors 
are hard at work. 

Three of these railroads enter Clearfield, 
the county seat, which is almost in the 
centre of the county, and which seems des- 
tined to be the metropolis of the upper 
West Branch. It is situated picturesquely 
amid high hills in a narrow valley, and is 
an attractive town, with wide shaded 
streets, pleasant homes, good public build- 
iugs, schools and churches and a little park. 
In addition to its immense coal trade it has 
a machine shop, a foundry, lumber manu- 
factures and a plant for making firebrick 
of a superior grade of clay from the neigh- 
borhood. It is coincident with the site of 
an Indian village known as Chinklaca- 
moose. and the clearings made by the red 
men are said to have given rise to the 
newer name. An Indian hermit at one time 
lived near there, who is said to have fright- 
ened away many of his color by well-timed 
apparitions, and it is explained thatChink- 
lacamoose means "no one tarries here will- 
ingly." In the French and Indian war a 
brigade of French troops from Fort Du- 
quesne gathered there for an expected de- 
scent upon the lower Susquehanna towns. 
Clearfield town's three railroads are the 
Pennsylvania, the New York Central and 
the so-called Brice line, the Buffalo, Roches- 
ter and Pittsburg. The Pennsylvania 
branch comes from the south, from its 
main line at Tyrone, and was the first road 
into the "back country." The Brice line is 
from the northwest, while the New York 
Central is the owner of the Beech Creek 

110 



road from Williamsport. It runs up as far 
as Lock Haven by the river, and then enters 
the mountains. 

In other parts of the Clearfield region 
there are lines almost too plentiful to 
enumerate. The Pennsylvania has many 
branches tapping its main line at Cresson, 
Tyrone or Altoona. The Beech Creek and 
Briee systems have spurs to old and new 
mines. The West Branch Valley is also 
intersected or traversed for short distances 
by the Pittsburg and Eastern and the 
Pennsylvania and Northwestern roads, 
while in still other parts of the county 
are the Altoona and Phillipsburg and the 
Allegheny Valley routes, all aiding to carry 
out to the world the lumber and soft coal 
of the Clearfield region. 

My trip along the West Branch through 
Clearfield county was certainly varied. 
Tart of the way I had to "leg" it, though 
for a few miles below Mahaffey and again 
above Clearfield trains were available for 
short distances. The '•tramps - ' were en- 
joyable for the insight which I got into a 
new country. So many creeks came into 
the river that it soon grew appreciably and 
was a rapid stream rushing through a val- 
ley of rich bottom land between hills of 
good size, though irregular in outline. The 
valley was rather broad until Clearfield was 
reached. The mining towns and railroad 
junctions were "raw" in their newness, 
but the older villages— places that have 
grown out of lumber camps, like Curwens- 
ville, were staid and pleasant enough. Cur- 
wensville is Clearfield's rival. It has a 
couple of thousand inhabitants, with tan- 
neries, foundries and woolen mills and con- 
siderable trade with miners and farmers. 

Below Clearfield railroads stay near the 
river for a mile or two, but soon make off 
to the southeast. For 30 miles thereafter 
the whistle of the locomotive is not heard 
beside the Susquehanna, though the Buf- 
falo, Rochester and Pittsburg system pro- 
poses to parallel the river with a road 
which will extend their line eastward to 
Williamsport. 

The region is yet practically a wilderness 
as far as Karthaus. There is a big lumber 
trade, to be sure, but the population is 

111 



scant, save in the lively spring days, and 
the settlements are insignificant and scat- 
tered. Doubtless beneath the surface great 
wealth lies, or the railroad would not be 
run. 

The scenery began to assume a bolder 
aspect as we neared the Alleghanies. The 
valley narrowed and in places almost dis- 
appeared in high, rugged hills, between 
which the river was hemmed into a gorge. 
The stream was rather tortuous in its 
course, alternately sweeping toward the 
middle of the narrow valley, and then hug- 
ging the high forest-crowned hills. 

Frenehville is a settlement about 20 
miles below Clearfield. It was made in 
1832 by parties from Normandy and Pi- 
cardy, through the exertions of M. Zavron, 
a wealthy Parisian who had become pos- 
sessed of much land thereabouts through 
the failure of a Philadelphia banker. 

The railroad which we met at Karthaus 
cannot be called much of a one. It runs 
one train for passengers three times a 
week, taking them down the river to .Keat- 
ing, where a transfer is made to the Phila- 
delphia and Erie Railroad, which had faith- 
fully followed the West Branch up stream, 
but which there turns up Sinnemahoning 
creek, in order to cross the oil regions and 
reach Lake Erie. 

Karthaus was founded in 1814 by Peter 
Karthaus. a German, who afterward be- 
came a merchant of Baltimore. He was 
attracted by the iron ores of the vicinity 
and erected a furnace, which, being in 
then unbroken wilds, finally succumbed. 
Coal is now the source of the town's ac- 
tivity. 

Fifty years ago the 65 miles of the West 
Branch, from Keating to Williamsport, 
were as wild and scantily populated as the 
region just above Karthaus still continues. 
The building of the Philadelphia and Erie 
Road, now a part of the Pennsylvania sys- 
tem, was the elixir of life for the valley. 
By it Williamsport was transformed from 
a straggling county town of slow 7 growth 
into a thriving and wealthy city. Not con- 
tent with this, the railroad made Lock 
Haven an energetic town. Jersey Shore 
and other hamlets lively boroughs and 

112 



created Renovo in a farmer's lieltl by plac- 
ing railroad shops there. Today Williams- 
port numbers at least 35,000 souls; Lock 
Haven, 24 miles up, has 10,000, and Re- 
novo, 28 miles beyond Lock Haven, half 
that number. 

All these cities and towns are located in 
the midst of beautiful mountain scenery, 
for they are on the West Branch in the 
region where it is engaged in breaking 
through the rugged Alleghauies. The moun- 
tains are bold, high and abrupt, and being 
densely wooded to their summits with pine 
and hemlock have a softness and somber- 
ness of outline that is attractive, though 
possibly monotonous. Until the river has 
fairly pierced the mountains, it is often 
cribbed and confined, with scarcely an 
inch of room. After this feat has been 
accomplished it seems content to come 
through a fertile valley to Williamsport, 
first choosing the centre of the cultivated 
land, then heading over to the base of a 
steep ridge. 

Renovo is built in an oval-shaped valley, 
about a mile and a half in length, formed 
by a division of the mountains. Lock 
Haven is amid rugged hills, on the right 
bank of the river, about two miles above 
the mouth of Bald Eagle creek, getting its 
name from the circumstance of being be- 
tween two locks on the old Pennsylvania 
canal. Williamsport is also surrounded by 
hills. Bald Eagle Mountain shutting it in 
on the south and various broken ridges 'ic- 
ing equally zealous to the north. 

Lumbering still continues a source of 
great wealth for the people of the West 
Branch down as far as Williamsport. 
While the immediate valley has been 
thinned out, there are vast quantities of 
timber upon its many streams and 
branches, and in the spring logging and 
rafting makes the sw r ollen river lively. 
There was a time when each forest had its 
little sawmill, where the lumber was pre- 
pared before being rafted down to market. 
Then Lock Haven and Williamsport got 
the lion's share by their great "booms." 
whose dams permitted the unsawed logs 
to float down stream singly. Now the en- 
trance of railroads is again giving the up- 

113 



per settlements a chance— a last chance, 
in fact, for lumbering is doomed on the 
West Branch just as it was half a century 
ago on the main stream. 

One melancholy sight along the West 
Branch is the many dead standing pines. 
Tbe first settlers, when lumber was too 
cheap to pay for sending it down stream, 
often lopped off all limbs for home con- 
sumption and let the tall tree stand deso- 
lated, then die, then rot. It now robs the 
forest of much picturesqueness'. 

Lock Haven is said to handle 35,000,000 
feet of lumber annually and Williamsport 
eight or nine times that amount. The 
masses of logs in the big booms at both 
places arc a sight, indeed. At Williams- 
port they often extend up several miles, 
and are so thickly jammed that one could 
walk from shore to shore, though I did not 
try it. 

Lock Haven is a town which may be 
praised for neatness and comfort. As the 
seat of Clinton county it is the centre of a 
farming as well as lumbering community. 
A State normal school is located there. 
In addition to its saw and planing mills, 
there are tanneries, machine shops and 
plants for making paper, firebrick, sewer 
pipe and cigars. In Revolutionary days it 
was the site of a fort for defense, usually 
known as Reed's, because William Reed 
and five sons formed the chief garrison. 
Great Island, two miles below Lock Ha 
ven, had its share of the events of pioneer 
days, as is shown by the chronicles of J. N. 
Meginness, of Williamsport. 

Mr. Meginness, among many other things, 
has preserved some of the traditions of 
Young Woman's creek, which joins the 
Susquehanna not far from Renovo. It is 
said that the creek derived its name from 
the suicide of a beautiful Indian girl, who 
threw herself into the water when her 
father would not let her marry the brave 
she loved. Again, it is said to have been 
the grave of a captive white girl, who 
found it her only means of escape from 
savages, and the legend says the ghost of 
the girl made the creek a dreaded one to 
the Indians. 

Farrandsville, five miles above Lock Ha- 
ven, is pointed out as an early example of 

114 



the misdirected use of capital. In 1830 
William P. Farrand interested some Bos- 
ton merchants in a company to exploit the 
coal found here and to use it in many 
manufactures on the spot. Seven hundred 
thousand dollars is said to have been ex- 
pended before it was seen that the "Ly- 
coming Coal Company" would not be prof- 
itable. Today lumber, firebrick and coal 
just keep the village alive. 

Jersey Shore, at the mouth of Pine creek, 
13 miles below Lock Haven, was to have 
been called Waynesburg, but the first set- 
tlers were two brothers from New Jersey, 
and that fixed the name. On July 4, 1776-' 
the day the Declaration of Independence 
was adopted in Philadelphia— there was a 
gathering of the Pine Creek settlers near 
Jersey Shore. They had heard that inde- 
pendence was being debated in the Conti- 
nental Congress, and they, too, made their 
declaration, though it was not until some 
weeks later they learned of the coincidence 
in dates. 

The title to that portion of the valley 
fr<»m Jersey Shore to Williamsport was in 
dispute for a number of years, and there 
was no organized local government. The 
"squatters,': however, antedated the vigi- 
lance committees of California by having 
a committee of three men to decide all dis- 
putes and punish all crimes. Their decisions 
were enforced by the neighbors en masse. 
These "squatters" became widely known 
as "fair-play men," and there is preserved 
the retort which one of them gave years 
afterward to a chief justice of Pennsylva- 
nia, who asked him about the system: 
"We had fair play then, Your Honor; now 
we have only law." 

Williamsport was laid out in 1795 by 
Michael Ross, and was made the seat of 
Lycoming county. It was placed where 
once had stood the village of "French Mar- 
garet," a half-breed, who ruled her Indian 
followers with prohibition ideas, no rum 
being allowed within its bounds. The city 
site was also the scene of the massacre of 
seven persons on June 10, 1778. Two chil- 
dren taken captive then were subsequently 
restored to their father through a chain of 
romantic circumstances. 



115 



Ross named Williamsport for a son. and 
laid it out with liberal notions that have 
ever since prevailed— generous space for 
public buildings, broad streets and a well- 
designed plan. Today the city has many 
charms. Lumber gave it wealth, and that 
wealth has been and is being used to de- 
velop many other industries. The stores 
and office buildings are mainly of a kind 
that larger cities might envy, and Fourth 
street, leading from the business section 
to the Philadelphia and Erie Depot, is 
lined with residences that are both costly 
and tasteful in their surroundings. The 
corners are taken up by church edifices 
that should cause shame to metropolitan 
congregations, designed with merit and 
handsomely built of stone. The Federal 
Building, in the elbow of Fourth street, is 
especially fine to look upon. The hills north 
of the city are dotted with the villas of 
wealthy men. and the suburbs in that di- 
rection, some of them surrounding a new 
park, are being rapidly developed oy 
means of si reel railways. 

Williamsport was made a city in 18GG. 
Its streets are not cobbled, but paved with 
wood, brick or asphalt. Its water supply 
conies from mountain springs, piped be- 
neath the river. It has gas, electric and 
steam-heating plants. There are three 
parks in all and two popular race-courses. 
The churches are set off by various public 
charities. In addition to the graded pub- 
lic schools there is Dickinson Seminary, 
a well-known co-educational institution 
founded in 1847. 

The railroads make Williamsport impor- 
tant. Along the Susquehanna Valley from 
the West conie two systems, the New York 
Central and the Philadelphia and Erie, 
both on the north bank. The Vanderhiit 
lines are the old Beech ('reek route from 
Clearfield and the former Fall Brook Bail- 
road from Geneva, X. Y.. and Corning. N. 
Y. These lines terminate here, but the 
Philadelphia and Erie goes on down the 
river, being paralleled by Philadelphia 
and Reading tracks, giving a railroad to 
both sides of the river to Sunbury. The 
Northern Central road from Lake Ontario 
and Elmira joins the Erie tracks to con- 

116 



tinue southward toward Baltimore. The 
Williainsport and North Branch Railroad 
runs northeast to Eaglesmere and other 
summer resorts of the Pennsylvania moun- 
tains. 

The West Branch Valley in the 40 miles 
from Williamsport to Sunbury was settled 
prior to the Revolution and consequently 
is more abundant in historical tales than 
the upper portion. It is a remarkably fer- 
tile and highly productive country and 
presents a delightful appearance in the 
summer months. The first settlers included 
many Germans and the big red barns and 
neat homes arc of frequent occurrence. A 
series of growing towns are there— Mon- 
toursville, Muncy. Montgomery, Watson- 
town, Milton and Lewisburg. 

Of these Milton is decidedly the busiest 
and largest. In 1SS2 the place was de- 
troyed by fire. It was not only soon rebuilt, 
but since that time has quadrupled its size, 
so as to now count 8,000 within its bounds. 
Its people arc nearly all mill-hands and 
foundry-workers, for there are railway car 
works,* rolling mills, axle forge, bolt and 
nut works, nail factory, washer works, a 
large steam tannery, agricultural imple- 
ment works, machine shops, planing mills, 
sawmills, iron foundries and a fly-net fac- 
tory. For the children of these busy la- 
borers the school advantages are excellent. 
There are 22 graded schools, topped off 
with a high school and a library. The 
town is, in fact, progressive in every cred- 
itable way. 

Montoursville was once the home of 
Madame Montour, a strange figure in In- 
dian history. She was the reputed daugh- 
ter of the Marquis de Frontenae, a fa- 
mous French Governor of Canada. Her 
two husbands were Iroquois chieftains- 
Roland Montour, a Seneca, and Caranda- 
wana, an Oneida. As a personage of im- 
portance among the Indians she was treated 
with much ceremony by the colony of Penn- 
sylvania and frequently visited Philadel- 
phia as its guest. Her son, Andrew Mon- 
tour, was a noted Indian scout and inter- 
preter for the colony. The notorious Queen 
Esther, who massacred 14 men at Wyo- 

117 



ining, is said to have been a daughter. 
Another daughter was Queen Catherine, 
whose home was in Central New York. 
The family name, evidently one of French 
derivation, is preserved hereabouts, in Mon- 
toursville, Montour's Ridge and Montour 
county. 

Near Hall's, a station a few miles east 
of Montoursville, and in the midst of old 
elms, is a residence built in 1769 by Sam- 
uel Wallis, a member of a noted Maryland 
family, born in Harford county. Wallis, 
who was a Quaker, and who died in 1798, 
was one of the most extensive landed pro- 
prietors of this country and is said to have 
owned a million acres at one time, though 
afterward much involved. His estace here 
extended for five miles along the river, it 
was later owned by Charles Hall and is 
known now as the "Hall Farms." 

Near Muncy the Susquehanna makes a 
splendid southward bend. It had been 
flowing eastward for many miles near the 
base of Bald EagJe mountain, but now V 
sweeps around the base of the mountain in 
a majestic curve. The scenery of the 
neighborhood is to be commended. Muncy 
Valley is broad, undulating, picturesque 
and fertile. The White Deer and Nittany 
Mountains are on the west side. 

Muncj r perpetuates the name of the Mou- 
sey tribe, a branch of the Lenni-Lenape, 
or Delaware Indians. They dwelt there 
for many years. Near the mouth of Muncy 
creek are the remains of a semicircular 
earthwork fortification of ancient pedigree, 
possibly older than the Monseys, perhaps 
a creation of the Moundbuilders. At Muncy 
in Revolutionary days Capt. John Brady 
had a fort and he and his sons displayed 
in the vicinity some of that fighting which 
made the name famous in American mili- 
tary annals. Gen. Hugh Brady, hero of 
the battles of Chippewa and Niagara Falls, 
was his son. Another son was Capt. Sam- 
uel Brady, an Indian fighter renowned in 
Southwestern Pennsylvania. A monument 
to Captain Brady was erected a few years 
ago by the people of Muncy. 

Not far away from Watsontown. on War- 
rior's run, was Freeland's Fort, which, in 

118 



the surumer of 1778. was captured by a 
party of British and Indians. Many of the 
settlers were killed ami the rest carried oft 
to Canada. 

Lewishurg, which was founded by Lewis 
Derr, a German trader, and was early 
known as Derr's Town, is the seat of Union 
county, and besides various factories, has 
a thriving trade with Buffalo and Bonn's 
Vaheys, but is chiefly of interest as the site 
of Bucknell University, formerly the Uni- 
versity of Lewisburg, but changed 15 
years ago because of the gifts of William 
Bucknell. the Philadelphia philanthropist. 
The institution was founded in 1846 by 
Baptists, but is now managed on non-sec- 
tarian principles. Its buildings are in 
shaded grounds in the south end of Lewis- 
burg. They include a college for young 
men and young women, an academy for 
boys, an institute for girls, music and art 
schools, a museum, laboratories, a library 
of 12,000 volumes and an observatory with 
a fine Clarke telescope. The students num- 
ber about 3U0, and come from many places. 
The endowment is about $350,000, and the 
buildings and apparatus are worth as much 
more. 

Bishop John H. Vincent, of the Methodist 
Church, the founder of the Chautauqua 
movement, was born across the river from 
Lewisburg and attended school there. 

As I have been writing this letter to you 
my regret at not being able to linger 
longer upon the West Branch has grown 
greatly. There is so much I might have 
seen, but didn't, and so much more I could 
have said, but haven't. 



119 



XIV. 

THE PASSING OF THE BOATS. 



SUNBUliY, NOKTHUMBEBLAND COUNTY,Pa. 

Sept. 3.— Today in glancing over some yel- 
low time-stained copies of a Sunbury pa- 
per. I was surprised to find this paragraph: 

PORT OF SUNBURY. 

Sept. 1, 1840.— Cleared— Canal boat Folly, to Balti- 
more, with lumber. Entered— Canal boats Gay and 
Mary Ann. from Berwick, coal. 

It was a paragraph to cause melancholy 
reflections. Sunbury's dream of becoming 
an inland port long ago faded. The sys- 
tem of canals along the Susquehanna was 
extensive and had a busy commerce. To- 
day the crack of the mule driver's whip 
on the towpath is scarcely heard, and it 
has been many years since the canals paid 
expenses as traffic highways. Many miles 
have been abandoned and in the parts still 
operated the business is as sluggish as the 
water. The steel rail is master of the field 
of transportation. 

The river has been even more deserted. 
The lumber rafts, "keelboats" and "arks' 
are no more and the only freight or pas- 
senger boats left are the little steamers 
that ply for a few miles above or below 
an occasional progressive town. The Sus- 
quehanna is indeed unnavigable. Its loss 
of traffic is to be regretted, for the old or- 
der of things had a picturesque side. 

It seems absurd now to read the state- 
ments of the author of a little book pub- 
lished at Philadelphia in 1796. "The de- 
sign of these pages," he said by way of 
preface, "is to show the importance of 
the great national canal— the River Sus- 
quehanna; the eligible situation, for the 
purposes of trade and manufactures, of 
some places <>n its banks and at its mouth; 

120 



its great connection with the other main 
waters of the United States, and the exten- 
sive and fertile surface of country from 
which it must drain the rich productions of 
agriculture and manufactures." Havre de 
Grace, at the mouth of the river, was to 
be a great port for foreign and inland com- 
merce. "The whole trade of this river must 
centre at this spot as an entrepot, or place 
of exportation. Whatever may be the exer- 
tions of E*ennsylvania or the moneyed cap- 
ital, Philadelphia, the trade of this river 
must ever pursue its natural channel." So! 

In the year following this little publica- 
tion a Philadelphia company gave a great 
impetus to the navigation of the Susque- 
hanna by opening a canal one mile long 
around the west side of the Conewago 
Falls at York Haven. These rapids had 
been a great bar to the development of 
commerce. In 1771 the Commonwealth 
had declared the Susquehanna a public 
highway and had made an appropriation to 
clear away gravel bars, take out stumps 
and trees, open a channel and construct 
towing-paths beside the rapids. But the 
Conewago Falls still continued perilous for 
boatmen. The little canal changed all this. 
Within a day or two after it had been 
formally opened by Gov. Thomas Mifflin 
a German named John Kreider, carrying 
flour from the Juniata, passed through and 
got a handsome sum for his cargo at Bal- 
timore. His success soon became known 
the length of the Susquehanna, and for 
nearly half a century Baltimore enjoyed 
an immense trade of this sort. 

These river boats had various types. The 
canoe of the Indian was replaced by the 
"dugout" of the trader, an imitation of 
the Indian craft. About the time of the 
Revolution there was introduced the type 
known as "keelboats," or as "Durham 
boats," the latter from a town on the Del- 
aware where the first one was built in 
1750. They were 60 or 70 feet long, 8 feet 
broud and 2 feet deep, making a carrying 
capacity of from 20 to 30 tons. The stem 
and bow were sharp and had small decks 
on them. A boardwalk or "run" extended 
the full length of each side and was used 
in "poling" the boat against the current. 

121 



Masts with two sails were utilized when a 
favorable wind blew. A steersman and 
two polers on each side constituted the 
crew. The journey down to market was 
easy, except for the danger of "shooting 
the rapids,*' but on the return trip poling 
was arduous and the progress was not 
much more than a mile an hour. 

Fifty years ago, in the spring of 1849, no 
less than 2,500 rafts, containing more than 
100,000,000 feet of lumber, floated past 
Sunbury from the main stream in 26 days, 
and many hundreds more from the West 
Branch. Today the forests of the main 
stream have been practically cleared, and 
those left on the West Branch are mostly 
floated in single logs to the booms at Lock 
Haven and Williamsport. The jolly life 
of these lumbermen, their adventures on 
the water, their dangers in the rapids— a 
life which Willis has pleasingly described— 
has passed forever from the Susquehanna. 
It had begun on the river about 1795. 
^ Steamboats began to be tried on the 
Susquehanna when Baltimoreans learned 
that Philadelphians were taking steps to 
divert the trade of the river valley, for 
which there was much rivalry between 
the two cities. In 1825 some who were 
interested in the development of York 
Haven built at York a steamboat named 
the "Codorus." It was mainly of sheet 
iron, 60 feet long, with a 10-horsepower en- 
gine capable of sending it against the cur- 
rent four miles an hour. With 50 passen- 
gers aboard she drew but 8 Inches of water 
and so had every chance of success. Her 
builder. John Elgar, a York Quaker, after 
testing her thoroughly between York 
Haven and Harrisburg, started up the 
river in the spring of 1826. He was wel- 
comed with many demonstrations at vari- 
ous towns, got as far as tfinghamton and 
returned in safety to York Haven, but re 
ported to his employers that navigation 
would not pay, as it was practicable for 
only a few months in eacn year because of 
tlie shallowness of the Susquehanna. 

Another attempt in the same year result- 
ed in a terrible disaster, which put an end 
to such experiments for a number of years. 
The steamer ■'Susquehanna," built at Bai- 

122 



timore, was 82 feet long and drew 22 
inches of water, causing her more diffi- 
culty than the "Codorus." She went past 
Sunbury and up as far as Berwick, but her 
boilers exploded as she was endeavoring to 
mount Nescopeck Rapids on May 3, 1826, 
and her passengers and crew were hurled 
high in the air, to the horror of a crowd 
of spectators. Many were killed and many 
others scalded or otherwise injured. 

In 1834 citizens of Owego built another 
"Susquehanna," a strong, well-made craft, 
which covered the 100 miles down stream 
to Wilkesbarre in eight hours. Nathaniel 
P. Willis, the author, was on board and 
has recorded an entertaining account of 
the trip. On her second trip the steamer 
had an accident at Nanticoke and was 
abandoned. 

The largest steamer on the river was 
the "Wyoming," launched in 1849 at Tunk- 
bannock. She was 12S feet long and 22 
feet beam. For three years she carried 
coal from Wilkesbarre up to Athens and 
other places whenever there was sufficient 
water, which was not often enough to 
make the boat pay. In 1851 an attempt 
was made by residents of Bainbridge, N. 
Y. A boat named "The Enterprise," 100 
feet long, with engines of 40-horsepower, 
paid her owners $3,000 in a three-months' 
season of high water carrying coal from 
Wilkesbarre to Athens. But when the 
river found its usual low-water mark, the 
"Enterprise" was high and dry on the 
sbore. Her machinery rusted, the sun's 
rays opened her seams and, like the "Wy- 
oming," she soon became unfit for service. 
I cannot here retail the history of the 
Susquehanna's canals. Fifty million dol- 
lars or more were spent upon them by the 
Slate of Pennsylvania or by corporations, 
and at one time there were nearly 400 
miles of waterways along the Susquehanna 
and another 400 miles upon its tributaries. 
Ik the "era of internal improvement" the 
river was to be the great key to Pennsyl- 
vania's development and to form part of 
a ureat inland water route by which the 
products of the growing West were to 
reach Philadelphia or Baltimore. 

123 



The canal at Conewago Falls was the 
first. The second was the "Old Maryland 
Canal," which was begun in 1796 and com- 
pleted in 1805. It extended from the Mary- 
land line down the east bank to Port De- 
posit. It was too narrow to be a money- 
maker, and soon passed out of existence. 

The third Susquehanna Canal, and the 
one which really gave the great impetus 
to the building of the chain of those in 
Pennsylvania, was the so-called Union 
Canal, from Middletown, on the Susque- 
hanna, up Swatara creek, down Tulpe- 
hocken creek to Reading, on the Schuyl- 
kill, a distance of 82 miles. It was begun 
in 1819. 

Along the Susquehanna there were canals 
from Athens to the Chesapeake, nearly 
300 miles. Of these the State in 1826-30 
built the various sections from Wilkes- 
barre to Columbia. The continuation to 
the Chesapeake was made by a Maryland 
company, who had many difficulties and 
were obliged to expend $4,000,000 to con- 
struct 45 miles. The portion north from 
Pittston to Athens, though originally 
planned by the State, was, after many 
years, carried out by a company of wealthy 
coal-mine owners, who believed they fore- 
saw a fine opportunity to send coal to 
the West and to New York city up the 
Susquehanna and thence across New York 
State to the Erie Canal. Their canal was 
nut done until 1858, and by that time the 
railroads were evidently destined to con- 
quer all, so this part was not long used. 
The route was up the Susquehanna to 
Athens, then up the Chemung to Elmira 
and through Seneca lake. 

on the West Branch of the Susquehanna 
there was a canal from Northumberland to 
Farrandsville. with extensions to Sinne- 
mahoning creek and up Bald Eagle creek 
to Belief onte. On other branches and trib- 
utaries there were canals as follows: The 
Chenango river, 97 miles from Birming- 
ham, constructed by the State of New 
York in 1833 to tap the Erie Canal at 
Utica; the Chemung and Swatara routes, 
already mentioned; Conestoga creek, up to 
Lancaster from the river; Codorus creek, 
up to York; Wisconisco creek, into the Ly- 
kens Valley coal region; and, most impor- 
124 



taut of all, the Juniata division of 127 
miles from Duncan's Island up to Holli- 
daysburg, where it connected with the old 
Portage Railroad across the Alleghany 
Mountains. It was by this route Charles 
Dickens went West on the trip described 
in his "American Notes." 

In 1858 Pennsylvania sold its canals, at 
a loss of many millions, to various railroad 
companies. Today the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road operates all in use along the Susque- 
hanna. They include from Nanticoke to 
Columbia, 145 miles; on the West Branch, 
from Northumberland to Montoursville, 35 
miles, and on the Juniata, from Duncan's 
Island to Newtown Hamilton, 05 miles. 
From last year's report I learn that 208,- 
!>93 tons of freight were handled in all, 
chiefly lumber and coal. The expenses of 
operating were .$12,040 more than the re- 
ceipts. In addition the default on taxes 
and interest was $150,000 more. 

Of fanciful ideas concerning the part the 
river was destined to play in navigation, 
none was more odd than that which con- 
structed a shipbuilding plant at Wilkes- 
barre. There have been boatbuilding yards 
of considerable size at Beach Haven, at 
Lewisburg and .other places on the river, 
but the idea at Wilkesbarre was to build 
seagoing vessels. In 1803 a sloop of 12 
tons was successfully launched and safely 
piloted to the Chesapeake. This exploit 
of the "John Franklin" caused a company 
which in 1812 built a schooner of 50 or 60 
tons drawing four feet of water. This 
was launched amid much enthusiasm in 
Wyoming Valley and was named "The Lu- 
zerne of Wilkesbarre." It passed down 
stream to the Conewago Falls, but those 
menacing rapids dashed the Luzerne to 
pieces on their jagged rocks. With it 
many hopes were also dashed to pieces. 

There is just one thought I wish to ad- 
vance for serious consideration. Would 
not the .$50,000,000 spent on canals have 
sufficed to make the Susquehanna navi- 
gable through dredging and blasting? It 
was a plan which had many advocates be- 
fore the canals were adopted. If it had 
been chosen, Wilkesbarre and Sunbury and 
many other river towns might have gone 
down to tlie sea in ships. 
125 



XV. 

A NOBLE WATER GAP. 



Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pa., Sept. 
4.— The gap in the Blue Mountains through 
which the Susquehanna forced its way to 
the sea ages ago is in plain view from Har- 
risburg, and presents a fine appearance. 
But to see properly the beauty of the big 
river's passage through the mountains it is 
necessary to come with the river from 
above. 

The Indians rightfully named those blue 
ridges yonder Kittatiuny, or the "endless 
hills." They line up across Pennsylvania 
and into New Jersey, and the gap which is 
made by the Susquehanna here is repeated 
by the Lehigh and by the Delaware. 

Good fortune has enabled me to see 
these three water gaps within a few weeks. 
The Delaware one is, indeed, picturesque 
and grand, but there is more majesty in 
the gap of the Susquehanna. The Dela- 
ware river is, perhaps, 100 yards broad, 
and makes a placid lake-like curve between 
the towering heights of Mount Minsi and 
Mount Tammany. The Susquehanna is 
nearly a mile broad, and sweeps onward 
with resistless flow, as if to say "I will 
tear away the whole mountain if you dare 
try and stop me ere I reach the sea." 

On each side, as seen from here, the 
ridge seems to bend, then bow low, then 
disappear beneath the horizon for the on- 
coming of the Susquehanna. The gap is 
often likened to the Rhine at Andernach. 

In the heart of this Susquehanna Water 
Gap the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line 
to the west crosses the river from the base 
of one wood-covered mountain to another, 
and the view from its long bridge is one 
well remembered. The river is shallow, 

126 



and tumbles noisily and foamingly over 
masses of low, jagged rocks. Other moun- 
tains jut out and shut in the view up the 
river. Below, the spires and taller build- 
ings of Harrisburg are seen. 

Had you come with us from Sunbury 
above, you would have seen the Susque- 
hanna pierce not one but several mountain 
ridges, the Northern Central train running 
close to the river around the foot of steep 
mountains for a dozen miles. There are at 
least four ridges, and those nearest Har- 
risburg arc respectively known as First 
Mountain, Second Mountain and Third 
Mountain, while Peter's Mountain is the 
long ridge first seen from the north as we 
approached the continence of the Juniata, 
and which is followed for a mile or so by 
the river before it bends and breaks 
through. The ride through the gap is a 
delightful one to any lover of bold scenery. 
You have hardly gotten a good survey ot 
some frowning ridge before the train has 
swept around a curve and you see another 
and more towering height beyond. On your 
right is the broad, grand river, and beyond, 
on the west bank— from Duncannon to 
Marysville— are freight and express trains 
of the Pennsylvania's main line, engaged, 
as you are, in hurrying through the moun- 
tains toward Harrisburg. 

At one point in the mountain pass, on the 
west side, the ridge of one high hill curves 
to meet another ridge and incloses a val- 
ley in a horseshoe shape. There is no way 
out save by the Susquehanna, and the val- 
ley is a veritable little world by itself. 
Sheltered as it is from the fury of wind 
and storm, it was early compared by Ger- 
man visitors to the safe harbors of the 
sea, and by them was named "The Cove." 

The 60 miles of the river between Sun- 
bury and Harrisburg afford many pleasing 
pictures. The river is broad for the whole 
length, and in every view there is that 
grateful sensation of distance and space, 
the same feeling which gives rise to the 
pleasure of wide-reaching panoramas com- 
manded from mountain tops. The upper 
waters are picturesque, yet confined. Here 
it is a mile to the opposite bank, and the 

127 



shallow waters usually possess serenity 
and majesty, though there are more rapids 
than in any other part of the river and 
more islands than one can count. 

Near Georgetown we saw a herd of cat- 
tle far out in the river, which was so shal- 
low that half their bodies were exposed. 
They seemed like little groups (if islands, 
and it was only when some of them moved 
that we realized what they were. There is 
a well-known picture of cows seeking re- 
lief from a summer's heat in a broad 
stream, and I at oner bethought myself 
of it. At Liverpool, a few miles below, the 
low water revealed wide stretches of river 
grass. The river there was especially 
pleasing. The waters possessed a lake form 
that was well set off by varied island 
groups, far off interlacing hills and nearer 
headlands. 

The Northern Central Railroad stays 
close by the river's cast bank from Sun- 
bury. The mountains forming the water 
gap are not the only ones along the river 
for this distance, and there are many high, 
rocky cuts and curves in the sides of 
Mahantongo and Berry's Mountains. Often 
the train dashes past some narrow ravine, 
in which a little cascade conies down, 
foamy white. Then huue walls of rock 
tower hi.^h, or else have fissures at then- 
bases in such fashion as to make caverns 
of some depth. 

The mountains back of the river on the 
east side are rich with hard coal, and the 
towns on the railroad— Herndon, George- 
town and Millersburg— are, like Sunbury, 
the outlets for valuable districts, with 
which they are connected by short lines of 
railroad. Millersburg is the shipping point 
for Lykens Valley coal, one of the finest 
grades put on the market. Herndon. which 
is growing fast. has. since the building of 
the Northern Central, wrested the coal 
trade from Tort Trevorton, opposite. When 
the latter spot was laid out, in 1853, the 
canal on the west side of the river afforded 
the only outlet for the coal of Trevorton, 
which is in the hills, a dozen miles back 
of Herndon. Accordingly, ;l railroad was 
built to the river, and across to the canal 



128 



by a long bridge. The piers of that bridge 
still stand desolate in the river, a monu- 
ment to the downfall of the canal, for at 
Herndon the loaded coal ears are simply 
shifted from one track to another to be 
sent to any part of this country. 

Selin's Grove, which is on the west bank 
six miles below Sunbury— with which it is 
connected by a Pennsylvania Railroad 
branch, continuing on to the Juniata at 
Lewiston — was the scene of one of the 
earlipst wholesale massacres in the Susque- 
hanna's history. On October 15, 1735. In- 
dians descended upon this infant settle- 
ment on Penn's creek, killed 13 persons 
and carried away 12 young women and 
children. One wounded settler brought the 
news to Harrisburg, and John Harris, Jr., 
led a party in pursuit. This party was am- 
bushed near the scene of the first slaughter 
and were forced to flee across the Susque- 
hanna. Seven were killed, five others 
drowned and five Indians slain. It is said 
of Harris that his life was saved by a cor- 
pulent doctor jumping upon the back of 
his horse as he was making him wade the 
river. A bullet from an Indian rifle went 
through the doctor's heart. 

The scene of the fight was shortly after 
marked by a wedge driven into a sapling, 
and though the fight was nearly a century 
and a half ago, the split was pointed out 
until very recently, the sapling having 
spread to a girth of 12 feet. 

One of the most realistic narratives ever 
told by captives is contained in the story 
published by Barbara Leininger and Marie 
LeRoy, two of those taken in the massacre 
at Penn's creek. They were driven into 
the deep forests of Western Pennsylvania, 
exposed to all kinds of weather, forced to 
eat acorns and roots, to cut down trees, 
to build huts, tan leather and do all kinds 
of drudgery. They witnessed the most in- 
human treatment of other prisoners, who 
were roasted alive, had melted lead poured 
down their throats and their bodies mu- 
tilated by cutting off one member after an- 
other. At the expiration of three years the 
girls escaped and, with almost incredible 
fatigue and hardships, reached friends 
again. 

129 



Selin's Grove owes its name to Anthony 
Selin, a Swiss, who was a captain in 
Washington's army. A brother-in-law of 
Selin was Governor Simon Snyder, one of 
the most sturdy characters ever the execu- 
tive of a Commonwealth. Born in Lan- 
caster in 1759, of poor parents, he was a 
tanner's apprentice in York, then a store- 
keeper and scrivener at Selin's Grove, 
where he prospered, went into politics and 
rose to be Governor in 1808. He was twice 
re-elected and filled a big niche in popular 
estimation. He strongly advocated free 
public schools and a canal from the Chesa- 
peake to the Great Lakes by way of the 
Susquehanna. 

In 1885 the State of Pennsylvania erected 
a monument over the grave where Gov- 
ernor Snyder was buried in 1819, in the* 
old Lutheran graveyard in Selin's Grove. 
Simon Cameron and Governors Pattison, 
Curtin and Hartranft made addresses at 
the unveiling, which was a big event for 
the people of Central Pennsylvania, who 
honor Simon Snyder's memory in many 
ways. The shaft is of Quincy granite, sur- 
mounted by a bronze bust and bearing 
medallions representing him as tanner. 
states man and farmer. 

The large substantial-looking home 
which Governor Snyder built for himself 
in Selin's Grove in the last year of his in- 
cumbency is still standing, though dam- 
aged by a fire which swept the town in 
1874. 

Selin's Grove is known as the seat of the 
Missionary Institute of the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church, which prepares young 
men for ministerial work in foreign lands. 
It was founded by Maryland Synod in 1856 
and was first intended for Baltimore, but 
the people of Selin's Grove secured it by 
generous donations of money and land. 
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Kurtz, an eminent 
Lutheran divine, was its first president. 

In the river in front of Selin's Grove is 
an island called the Island of Que. It 
was once owned by Conrad Weiser, the 
Indian interpreter, who is said to have 
gotten it from its Indian possessor by 
"swapping dreams." The Indian first 

130 



dreamed that Weiser gave him— but what's 
the use of repeating the tradition I told 
you about "Johnson's Dreamland," near 
Otego? Turn back and read it over and 
you will have the legend of the Island of 
Que. 

Middle Creek, a few miles below Selin's 
Grove, was, in January, 1768, the scene of 
a wanton slaughter of Indians. Frederick 
Stump, a settler there, killed four red men 
and two squaws, cut a hole in the river ice 
and dropped the bodies in. Then on the 
following day he killed an Indian woman, 
two girls and a child farther up Middle 
creek and burned their bodies. Stump 
was arrested and put in jail at Carlisle, 
but was rescued by a mob of sympathizers, 
who believed the colonial policy of pro- 
tecting the Indians a gross mistake. This 
was five years after the "Paxton boys' " 
affair in Lancaster county. 

McKee's Half Falls, shortly below 
Georgetown, but on the west side of the 
river, derives its name from being the 
farther half of rapids which are separated 
by an island. The half nearest the east 
bank has never borne a name. There art- 
two ledges of rocks. Over the first the 
river descends three and one-half feet, 
over the second three feet. Thomas Mc- 
Kee was an Indian trader, who settled on 
the west side as early as 1750. He was a 
pluckier fellow than one Peter Shaffer, 
who stayed but a short time near the 
Half Falls, because he couldn't stand the 
noise of the rapids, nor of his neighbor's 
cowbells, nor the smell of the shad caught 
in the river. 

On the west side, opposite Halifax, which 
is 21 miles above Harrisburg, there is a 
spot called "Girty's Notch," where Simon 
Girty. the notorious frontier renegade, is 
said to have spent several days in a hill 
cave next to the river, watching a gather- 
ing of Revolutionary soldiers at Halifax, 
where was located one of a chain of Sus- 
quehanna defense forts. Another was Fort 
Hunter, near where Rockville now stands, 
six miles above Harrisburg. There are no 
remains of the two forts. 

Girty was born at Fort Hunter, and as a 
boy lived there and in Sherman's Valley, 

131 



in the mountains west of the Susquehanna. 
His father was a worthless drunken char- 
acter. A biographer of Simon Girty has 
traced him and his brothers with much 
care, and has shattered the "Girty's 
Notch" tradition by proving that Girty 
did not return to the Susquehanna upon 
any such marauding expedition. 

At the river's junction 20 miles above 
Harrisburg with the Juniata, the "Blue 
Juniata," a stream of romantic flavor and 
fine scenery, the canal shifts across from 
the west to the east bank of the Susque- 
hanna by means of a dam and a wooden 
towing bridge. The canal branch which 
goes up the Juniata is carried across that 
stream by an aqueduct which in its day 
was considered an engineering achieve- 
ment, and which aroused the lively curi- 
osity of Charles Dickens. 

Duncan's Island, which lies at the con- 
fluence of the two rivers, is one of the 
largest islands of the Susquehanna. It is 
two miles long and its fertile soil has 
given it a considerable population, while 
its location amid river and mountain scen- 
ery makes it attractive to visitors. Its 
situation was doubtless the reason why it 
was a favorite spot for Indians. The 
Nanticokes dwelt there for some time, and 
the Shawnees and Susquehannocks before 
them, and there are stories of* a battle in 
which the Delawares were badly defeated 
by Cayugas. A thousand Delawares are 
said to have been slain. The Cayugas had 
muskets and the Delawares fought with 
bows and arrows. There was once a 
burial mound here, and when the canal 
was being dug hundreds of skeletons were 
found. Indian weapons and utensils are 
often dug up to this day. 

In 1744 Rev. David Brainerd, a mission- 
ary, visited the Indians then living on 
Duncan's Island, and has left a sad picture 
of their destitution, shiftlessness and de- 
bauchery. The tribe were having a "deer 
sacrifice." which Mr. Brainerd describes 
in his journal as a wild, drunken orgy. 

William Baskins, who settled on Dun- 
can's Island a few years later, was in 
1755 scalped, and his wife, a son and a 
daughter taken prisoner. The wife es- 

132 



caped, but the son was carried to New 
York and afterward became noted along 
the border as Timothy Murphy, "scout and 
Indian terror." I have already mentioned 
him on the Upper Susquehanna. He was 
an unerring shot and is said to have killed 
Gen. Fraser in the battle of Bemis Heights. 

The same Baskins family are among the 
ancestors of Alexander H. Stephens, Vice- 
President of the Confederacy. James Bas- 
kins ran a ferry to the east side of the 
Susquehanna from what is now Duncan- 
non, a little iron town at the mouth of the 
Juniata. His daughter fell in love with 
Alexander Stephens, a British soldier who 
served under General Braddock. Her 
father was opposed to her marrying the 
redcoat and disinherited her when she did 
so. Stephens and his wife moved to Geor- 
gia. Some of their descendants returned 
to the neighborhood of the Juniata. 

Another prominent character of the vi- 
cinity was Gen. Frederick Watts, one of 
Pennsylvania's brigadiers in the Revolu- 
tion, and the ancestor of several men who 
gained distinction in this State. 

In common with the dwellers farther up 
the river, the people of this portion of the 
Susquehanna share in the benefits as well 
as the perils of the spring floods, which 
swell the waters sometimes to an extra 
elevation of 20 feet or more. It is at these 
seasons that the logs and rafts which the 
intervals accumulated used to be floated 
off to market, but the lifting of the waters 
no longer presents such stirring sights, 
though the dangers still recur. In Colonial 
days there was a belief that a disastrous 
flood occurred on the Susquehanna each 
14 years, but this has been amply dis- 
proven by time. In 1874 a terrible flood 
brought disaster to many a settlement al- 
ready bent under the burden of war. In 
1786 occurred the "pumpkin flood," be- 
cause millions of them were brought down 
from the flooded farmlands of thrifty New 
Yorkers. The Susquehanna's chronicle of 
losses by floods is a long one. 



133 



XVI. 

IN BUSY HARRISBURG. 



Harrisbukg, Pa., Sept. 5.— This city is 
one of those busy places whose importance 
one can quickly see by the miles upon miles 
of railroad tracks adjacent to the particu- 
lar track upon which one's train enters the 
city. 

The trains clatter past hundreds and hun- 
dreds of freight cars bearing the names of 
railroads all over the country. Sidings run 
into factories and foundries every block or 
so. Engines of the Pennsylvania road and 
its branch, the Northern Central, of the 
Reading road and of the Cumberland Val- 
ley road puff and blow past one, and al- 
together the sight is interesting because of 
the idea it gives of the city's prosperity. 

This idea is uot removed by getting away 
from the railroad and into the heart of the 
city. The manufactories are numerous, the 
stores fine looking, the hotels abundant, 
the financial institutions housed in befit- 
ting buildings and the streets bustling with 
people. For a year past the presence of 
the soldiers at Camp Meade, below r.he 
city, has added to the liveliness. Hundreds 
of young fellows in brown canvas uniforms 
were on the principal thoroughfares during 
our stay. 

All of which betokens the fact that Penn- 
sylvania's capital city is not a place which 
sleeps during the intervals of legislative 
meetings, but outranks all other cities of 
its class in the State in the business done, 
and is even pushing close to Pittsburg and 
Philadelphia. In this it is undoubtedly 
greatly aided by its nearness to the coal re- 
gions and by the facilities for shipment of- 
fered by its railroads. 

134 



We found many places of interest in a 
stroll through the city, some because of 
their historical associations, some because 
of their present attractiveness. To begiu 
with, our hostelry, the Commonwealth, is 
on the site of the hotel at which President 
Washington was made much of on his re- 
turn from the whisky insurrection in West- 
ern Pennsylvania in 1794. At. the same 
hotel Abraham Lincoln was a guest in Feb- 
ruary, 1861, when told that there was a re- 
ported plot in Baltimore to kill him on his 
way through to Washington, information 
which led to his famous "midnight ride" 
through the Monumental City. The present 
hotel was erected about nine years ago, 
and is the headquarters for many of Penn- 
sylvania's political leaders. 

From our hotel we strolled one block east 
on Market street past the County Court 
building, whose spire has been painted so 
white as to be almost blinding in the noon 
sun; past some of those banking institu- 
tions of which I have been speaking, then 
one block north to the State Capitol, ad- 
miring as we reached there the large Fed- 
eral building of gray stone on the corner 
opposite. 

Frankly my hrst impression of Capitol 
Park was this: "What a pity such a beau- 
tiful spot should be marred by having a 
big ugly brick barn in the centre!" For the 
new eapitol structure in its present form 
is, without mincing matters, a disgrace to 
the people of a big State. And it will re- 
main a disgrace until Pennsylvania's legis- 
lators shuffle off some of their niggardli- 
ness and their political posing. 

To understand things, let me remind you 
that in February, 1898, fire destroyed the 
old State Capitol, which had stood since 
1819 on the eminence given for it by the 
city's founder in the centre of this Capitol 
Park. It was, in its way, a fairly adequate 
structure, but to replace it some of the 
more progressive of Penusylvanians fa- 
vored an edifice in which the best of pres- 
ent-day American architecture should be 
exemplified. The architect selected was 
Henry Ives Cobb, whose plans for the 
Fisheries Building at the Chicago World's 

135 



Fair had been much admired. Mr Cobb 
designed a eapitol building which will if 
eyer completed, form, as it should, the chief 
beauty of Harrisburg— a large shell of brick 
with an outside of marble and a fine dome' 
But the Legislature of 1898 appropriated 
only $550,000 and the Legislature of L899 
declined to add anything, and the result is 
that only a big. ugly red-brick barn con- 
fronted us after we had walked through 
the attractive grounds. No marble relieves 
the plainness and ugliness, and a cheap 
temporary roof overs the centre part, 
where the dome was to have been. The 
structure is so large that it is conspicuous 
for some miles around Harrisburg and the 
mischief is thus made worse. 

The excuse which was given for limiting 
the cost to such a small figure was that 
larger sums would lead to extravagance 
and State scandals like that which attend- 
ed the building of the New York Capitol at 
Albany, where one part was falling to 
pieces before another was completed It is 
also asserted by the advocates of economy 
that it was improper to have gone ahead 
with plans for such an ambitious building 
when it was known that the appropriation 
would not warrant it. 

The Legislature met in its State •'barn" 
when last in session, but the paintings, the 
collection of Civil War flags and the other 
historical relics which used to interest vis- 
itors to the old Capitol building are stored 
in the State Library building, which is a 
structure of much beauty and~tastefulness, 
built five years ago to house a library which 
is indeed a fine one. and erected at a cost, 
exceeding that prescribed for the Capitol 
Some of the other State departments are 
placed m two small edifices of twin design, 
which stand on each side of the new Capi- 
tol, just as they did beside the old one. 

1 have spoken of the attractiveness of 
Capitol park, and it is deserved. Many 
beautiful trees of rare kinds, flower bed's 
and hothouses, well-kept lawns and pleas- 
ing paths make it a favorite resting place. 
Several churches and homes of fine design 
are on the streets surrounding the park, 
which occupies the space of several ordi- 
nary city blocks. 

136 



Harrisburg is, in good measure, a "monu- 
mental city." The first shaft which we no- 
ticed was in Capitol Park, south of the 
State buildings. It is a tall Corinthian col- 
umn of Maryland marble, surmounted by a 
statueof "Victory" of fine Italian marble. It 
was erected in 1868 to the memory of Penn- 
sylvania's soldiers in the Mexican War.and 
the names of the battles of that war are 
contained on the granite base, while in 
front lie cannon captured at the battle of 
Cerro Gordo and several highly ornament- 
ed brass guns presented to the Continental 
Congress by Lafayette. 

Immediately in front of the Capitol and 
facing down State street, a fine broad ave- 
nue which leads west to the river, is a 
handsome equestrian statue of General 
Hartranft, which was unveiled last Deco- 
ration Day. It stands on a fine base of pol- 
ished granite and is altogether a creditable 
tribute to a man who commanded Pennsyl- 
vania troops in the Civil War and who was 
afterward a Governor of the State. 

Our walk down State street to the river, 
two blocks away, led past three other monu- 
ments, of which the most prominent was 
an obelisk 110 feet high, patterned after 
the pair of obelisks which were at the gates 
of the Egyptian city of Memphis, and to 
my way of thinking as graceful as the 
Bunker Hill monument of the same type. 
Its inscription tells the reason for its erec- 
tion, as follows: 

To the soldiers of Dauphin county who gave their 
lives for the life of the Union in the war for the 
suppression of the Rebellion, 1861-65. Erected by 
their lellow-citizens, 1869. 

The other two monuments are both in 
the yard of St. Patrick's Catholic Pro- 
Cathedral, a low edifice of some age, though 
pretty within. One of the monuments is 
a Mexican cross of white marble to the 
memory of Columbus, one of the many 
erected to the famous Genoese during the 
four hundredth anniversary of his discov- 
ery of America. The other is a square 
monument of polished black marble, sur- 
mounted by a religious statue and marking 
the grave of Right Rev. J. F. Shanahan, 
the first Bishop of Harrisburg. 

137 



On the same block with St. Patrick's Pro- 
Cathedral is the handsome edifice of Grace 

Methodist Episcopal Church, erected about 
20 years ago at a cost of more than $145,- 
000. It was the place where the State 
Legislature met after the Capitol fire. 

Another Harrisburg church possessing 
historic interest is that of the Zion Luth- 
eran Congregation, on Fourth street, near 
Market, with a tall spire. At a national 
political convention there in 1840 William 
Henry Harrison was nominated for the 
Presidency. 

One block away on Fourth street is the 
Bethel Church of God. the first pastor of 
which was Rev. John Winebrenner, the 
founder of the denomination which is of- 
ten called by his name. Mr. Winebrenner, 
who was a native of Maryland, was origi- 
nally a German Reformed pastor, and came 
to Harrisburg as such in 1S20. But the 
doctrines which he advocated in a series of 
revivals caused such comment among the 
German Reformed brethren that he with- 
drew, and in 1830, at a conference of his 
followers in Harrisburg, founded the new 
church. 

The river front of Harrisburg is noted for 
its picturesqueness and its tine residences. 
The bank of the river was long ago parked 
and the walk through it now leads be- 
neath rows of tall, tine shade trees. Next 
to these rows of trees is Front street, and 
on the opposite side of Front street for live 
or six blocks are the homes of Harrisburg' s 
most prosperous residents. Right on the 
corner of State street, as we came from the 
Capitol, was the tasteful residence of for- 
mer United States Senator Don Cameron, 
whose tine farm and summer place was af- 
terward pointed out to us, a short distance 
below the city. A block and a half south of 
State street, on Front street, is i he Gov- 
ernor's residence, a large three-story brick 
(1 welling of plain design presented to the 
State by citizens of Harrisburg in 1864. 

A few of the dwellings along Front street 
are both handsome and new, but the ma- 
jority appealed to us because they are of 
older pattern, substantial, solid and often 
quaint. 

138 



The series of bridges across the west bank 
added much to the pleasure of the river 
walk. The Susquehanna is here a mile 
broad, with one large and several small 
islands dividing its course in front of the 
city. Four bridges now span it, while the 
stone piers for a fifth are standing, though 
they may never be used. They were put 
up by the Vauderbilts when they had the 
scheme of a great railroad to the West and 
South through Pennsylvania. 

The quaint old covered bridge is one of a 
type which has mostly passed away, but 
which still has some examples along the 
Susquehanna and its tributaries. This one 
here is the largest and the most famous. 
They were all built after the design of 
Theodore Burr, a New England civil en- 
gineer, who received much approval in this 
State. This one was begun in 1812 and 
finished in 1816. The part from Harris- 
burg to the island in midstream was car- 
ried away by a flood in 1816 and again by 
fire in 1866, but the other half is part of 
the original. Its wood has become so dark 
and its proportions so uneven in its 80 
years of existence that it now looks like a 
huge snake laid on stone piers. 

Charles Dickens on the way from Balti- 
more to the West in 1842 drove through the 
old bridge, and this is what he wrote about 
it in his ' 'American Notes:" 

We crossed the river by a wooden bridge, roofed 
aad covered in on all sides, and nearly a mile in 
length. It was profoundly dark, perplexed with great 
beams crossing and recrossing it at every possible 
angle, and through the broad chinks and crevices in 
the floor the rapid river gleamed far down below 
like a legion of eyes. We had no lamps, and as the 
horses stumbled and floundered through this place 
toward the distant speck of light it seemed inter- 
minable. I really could not persuade myself as we 
rumbled heavily on, filling the bridge with the hol- 
low noises— and held clown my head to save it from 
the rafters above— but that I was in a painful 
dream. 

Our walk along the river terminated at 
the most interesting historical spot in Har- 
risburg, the grave of John Harris, pioneer 
of the neighborhood and father of the John 
Harris who started a ferry and founded the 
town, and who secured its adoption as the 

139 



State capital in 1812. The elder Harris 
was one of the first settlers of the Lower 
Susquehanna, and at this point from 1719 
until his death, in 1749. he carried on a big 
trade with the Indians. 

The spot where he lies buried was select- 
ed by him because of a tragic incident of 
his life which has been oft repeated and 
which forms the subject of a historical 
painting owned by the State. When he 
came here he made friends with the people 
of an Indian village near by called Pax- 
tang or Paxton. One day some drunken 
Indians from a distance seized the sturdy 
old trader and had begun preparations to 
burn him alive beneath an old mulberry 
tree near his home, when he was rescued 
by a few friendly Indian neighbors, who 
had been told of his seizure by a faithful 
colored slave named Hercules. 

Today the grave, which is marked by a 
marble tombstone, is inclosed in an iron 
railing and stands in the centre of this 
river promenade. The old mulberry tree 
long ago withered, but the stump remained 
until carried away about 10 years ago by 
a severe storm. A young mulberry tree has 
been planted in its place by a descendant 
of old Harris. 

Harris, it is said, told his family on his 
deathbed that if they did not bury him 
where he wished he would "get up and 
come back." 

Back of the Harris grave, on Front street, 
is the historical mansion of his son, John 
Harris, Jr., built in 1766 of limestone, mas- 
sive and substantial. It remained in the 
possession of the Harris family until 1840, 
and after having been a school for some 
years was bought in 1863 by one of Penn- 
sylvania's most noted men, Simon Cam- 
eron. Senator Cameron added to the old 
mansion in the rear and beautified its sur- 
roundings, and there he dwelt until his 
death, in 1889. 

John Harris, Jr., is not buried within the 
limits of Harrisburg, but in the graveyard 
of Old Paxton Church, which is three miles 
east of the city, an easy and interesting 
trip. The Presbyterian pioneers had a 
house of worship here as early as 1725, and 
the present plain but substantial limestone 

140 



church was put up about 1740. Here a 
pious Presbyterian pastor, John Elder, 
preached with his rifle by his side in the 
French and Indian war, when massacres 
were daily anticipated and when the man 
of God was also colonel of the provincial 
forces of the neighborhood. On the edge 
of a handsome grove of old oaks are the 
graves of half a dozen generations, among 
them not only John Harris, but his son-in- 
law. Gen. William Maclay, one of Pennsyl- 
vania's first Senators, and of Generals 
Simpson and Crouch, Revolutionary heroes 
of local note. 

Some men of Dauphin who are not buried 
here came to mind as we searched among 
the old tombstones— Lindley Murray, the 
founder of English grammar, whose father, 
a Quaker, had a gristmill a few miles 
southeast of Paxton Church, on Swatara 
creek; Rev. William Graham, who founded 
Washington and Lee University at Lexing- 
ton, Va.. and Alexander McNair, whose 
memory is revered in St. Louis as the first 
Governor of the State of Missouri, and who 
said himself that he became a prominent 
man in the West because a younger brother 
gave him a good trouncing when his wid- 
owed mother left them to decide by a set- 
to which one was to have the old farm in 
this county. 

From the hills east of Harrisburg on our 
way to Paxton it was possible to get a view 
of the picturesque surroundings of Harris- 
burg. such as used to be obtained from the 
dome of the old Capitol. To the northwest 
are the Kittatinny Mountains, a narrow 
gap in their blue ridge showing where the 
Susquehanna breaks through to flow past 
Harrisburg and on down to Maryland. The 
river valley is broad and opening out of it 
here are two of the fairest valleys in 
America— Lebanon, to the northeast, to- 
ward Reading, and Cumberland, to the 
southwest, along the Kittatinnies,to Mary- 
land and into Virginia. The city, with its 
spires, its factory chimneys aud its smoke- 
stacks, pleased us, too, until our eyes fell 
upon that great hulk, the unfinished Cap- 
itol. From there we had to turn away. 



141 



XVII. 

SOME MODEL FARMS. 



Columbia, Lancaster County, Pa., 
Sept. (!.— Nine miles below Harrisburg, on 
the east bank of the Susquehanna, the 
Pennsylvania Railroad passes near a series 
of fertile fields, which within the past year 
or so have become widely known as the 
site of Camp Meade. 

They are on a level bluff some distance 
back from the river and north of the town 
of Middletown. Last summer an entire 
army corps was encamped there and this 
years four of the new regiments intended 
for Philippine service have been organ- 
ized and drilled there. 

But before Camp Meade was dreamed 
of, before the Spanish war developed, 
these fields had as much interest for in- 
telligent farmers all over the country as 
they now possess to those who read about 
the doings of the soldiers. For they form 
part of the model farms of the late James 
Young, long the pride of Pennsylvanians 
and the envy of every farming community. 
Many notable visitors from abroad inter- 
ested in agriculture have gone away from 
Middletown enchanted. One, the Duke 
of Sutherland, wrote of his visit in terms 
calculated to cause the farmers of Eng- 
land to imitate some of Colonel Young's 
scientific methods. 

Even to the ordinary visitor these farms 
cannot help but be a delight to the eye. 
Everywhere system, neatness and order 
prevail. The fences are trim and the 
many farm buildings are all as clean as 
pins and evidently built and kept in fine 
fashion. This is especially true of the 
barns, which are not the Swisser or Penn- 
sylvania German type, nor yet the pro- 

14-2 



verbial red barn, but aro largo, airy, finely 
built and markedly neat looking because 
of tbe frequent application of ligbt paint. 

Fancy passing a field of tall corn a mile 
long, or 75 acres of growing grain, or a 
hundred acres of grass and clover. Yet 
this is what we did today. The series of 
farms stretch for two and a half miles 
along the railroad tracks, most of them 
above Middletown, but two below that 
town. They were not bought all at once 
by Col. Young, but were gradually acquired 
during the last half century, and each of 
the 11 farms had its appropriate name 
and its separate attention. In all there 
were 1,500 acres. Forty men were regularly 
employed and double that number in har- 
vest time. The pastures contain cattle of. 
high dfgree and in the barnyards are pigs 
and chickens of blue-ribbon kinds. When 
the Young exhibits were lined up at county 
fairs the other farmers generally felt dis- 
couraged. 

The founder of these farms, Col. James 
Young, was born in Middletown in 1820 
and was the son of a hotelkeeper. With 
an inborn fondness for farming, he was 
enabled to gratify his tastes in this mag- 
nificent way when wealth came to him 
through dealing in lumber and coal, 
through railroad building and through in- 
vestments in a variety of corporations. 
Pennsylvania honored his' knowledge of 
farming by keeping him for a long time on 
her State Board of Agriculture. Colonel 
Young died in 1895, and the farms were 
partitioned among his five children. Nearly 
all have lately been disposed of. 

While I have spoken so enthusiastically 
about the Young farms, it must not be 
imagined that they are the only places 
worth noticing in the ride between Har- 
rishurg and Columbia, a distance of 27 
miles. Several towns are on the east 
bank— Steelton, Highspire, Middletown, 
Bainbridge and Marietta— all containing 
manufactories of various sorts and all 
owing their business largely to their situ- 
ation along the Pennsylvania Railroad and 
the canal. On the west bank the North- 
ern Central Railroad runs for 14 miles be- 
fore it leaves the river at Y r ork Haven 

143 



and strikes off through York to Baltimore. 
It, too, has built up several villages there- 
New Cumberland, Goldsborough and York 
Haven — but they are not to be compared 
to the bustling towns of the east bank. 

The river through this region is broad 
and dotted with islands, upon which crops 
are growing. High hills stand in irregu- 
lar fashion on the west bank, sometimes 
near the river, sometimes set back. On 
the east bank there are scarcely any hills 
until a mile or so above Columbia, when 
Chiques rock is reached. The country on 
this side is a rolling one, not especially 
picturesque, but teeming with life. 

Iu the daytime the chimneys of Steel- 
ton excite wonderment by their multi- 
# plicity, but in the night they charm by 
their brilliancy. There are no less than 
half a hundred of these tall black fellows, 
and lurid tongues of flame often leap from 
their tops, affording a fine pyrotechnic dis- 
play. The railroad train passed for a mile 
or more through the great steel plant, 
which today gives employment to about 
7,000 men. The town has so developed 
that it almost seems a part of Harrisburg, 
though in reality three miles below the 
city. Twelve thousand people dwell here 
now, but in 1896, when the works of the 
Pennsylvania Steel Company were located 
here, there were only six houses. The 
company has always shown a warm inter- 
est in the progress of its workmen, and 
among other things has given a fine school- 
house to the town. The works are at pres- 
ent running from Monday morning to Sat- 
urday night, day and night, for there are 
orders far ahead for Bessemer steel rails, 
steel ingots and structural steel patterns. 

Half way between Steelton and Middle- 
town is Highspire, about whose odd name 
nobody seems to know anything. There 
is no steeple here of any size. On a bluff 
is "Tinian." an interesting colonial home, 
probably the oldest in this vicinity. It 
was erected about 1760 by Col. James 
Burd. who was an Indian fighter of great 
bravery and who entertained here many 
noted men. The old iron knocker is still 
on the front door, and the interior of the 
stone edifice has never been remodeled. 

144 



Middletown is 30 years older than Har- 
risburg, which long ago outstripped it. 
Its name, we are told, came from the cir- 
cumstance that it was half way between 
Lancaster and Carlisle. More than a cen- 
tury ago when farm produce began to be 
rafted down the Susquehanna, Middletown 
was the place at which it was transferred 
to wagons for an overland trip to Philadel- 
phia. The building of the canal to Reading 
by using Swatara creek, which here flows 
into the Susquehanna, still further helped 
the place, but, of course, the canal is dead 
now. Still Middletown is a pleasant town 
of more than 5,000 inhabitants, with fur- 
naces, a foundry and half a dozen mills 
working up lumber in various ways. Its 
population has more than doubled in 30 
years; so that it is by no means to be 
considered as a dying town. 

One of the schools of Middletown is the 
Emaus Institute, where orphans of Lu- 
theran parentage are educated. It was 
founded through the, liberality of a towns- 
man, Gottlieb Frey, who was originally a 
poor boy, but amassed wealth before his 
death in 1806. It is said of Frey, who was a 
German, that his name was not originally 
Frey, but that on one occasion, when ped- 
dling goods up the river near Fort Hunter, 
he was caught by some mischievous sol- 
diers, who declared that they intended to 
take his pack, as he seemed to be a run- 
away servant; to which the captured lad, 
who could then speak little English, pro- 
tested in German, "I am free," or "Ich bin 
frei," and was ever afterward known along 
the Susquehanna as Peddler Frey. 

St. Peter's Lutheran Church, in Middle- 
town, is more than a century old. Col. 
Young is among those buried there. 

Hill Island, which is one of a group in 
a bend of the river below Middletown, 
was the scene of a curious gathering in 
1843. Rev. William Miller, founder of 
the Second Adventists, preached through 
this section that the world was to come 
to an end on a certain day of that year and 
many curious followers gathered on a sum- 
mit on Hill Island to welcome the event. 
They prayed and waited all night, we are 
told, but when another day dawned and 

145 



the world went on they left the island in 
disgust. 

Half a century ago an eccentric charac- 
ter lived on the summit of the Conewago 
Hills, on the west side of the river above 
Hill Island. He claimed to be versed in 
medicine, law and surveying, and on his 
mountain home, where he lived alone, he 
had "shingles" proclaiming that he prac- 
ticed these three professions. It is not to be 
presumed that persons who needed a doctor 
or lawyer toiled to the top of the steep hill 
to consult this one. The hermit wore. Avin- 
ter and summer, in all sorts of weather, a 
high-crowned white silk hat and a light 
colored suit, and carried over his head a 
white umbrella. Long before his death he 
made his own coffin and carved a lime- 
stone pyramid for his grave. 

The Conewago Rapids, which are in the 
river at the mouth of Conewago creek, for 
a long time formed the principal obstacle 
to the navigation of the river by boats and 
rafts until the canal I have mentioned was 
opened around its west end in 1707. 

The village of York Haven, which was 
soon started at the lower end of the canal, 
was for a generation one of the most im- 
portant business centres in lower Pennsyl- 
vania. Baltimore capitalists developed here 
a series of big flour mills, a nail factory, 
cooper shops, workmen's homos and a sum- 
mer resort hotel, which was distinguished 
in 1824 by having as a guest General La- 
fayette, who was on his way from Balti- 
more ro Harrisburg. 

The wildest dreams were indulged in 
about York Haven, and it was frequently 
asserted that it was destined to be one of 
the great cities of the country. The 
"boom'' fever seized the owners and in 
1814 a town was regularly laid out and lots 
advertised for sale. Most of the streets 
bore the names of the Baltimore investors, 
including such well-known citizens as 
Thomas Hillen, Jacob Stansbury. William 
Wilson, Joseph Townsend, John Weather- 
burn, William Cole and William Gwynn. 
But alas! the largest mill was burned in 
182G, and then the construction of the canal 
across the river and the later invasion of 
railroads into the valley contrived to knock 

146 



the bottom out of York Haven. The prop- 
erty ultimately passed into the hands of 
the Glenns, of Baltimore, who sold it in 
1885 to tne Conewingo Paper Company, 
who have a paper mill in full operation. 

The experiences of York Haven as a 
"boom town" were re-echoed every mile 
along the Susquehanna from Harrisburg to 
Columbia. It must not be supposed that 
an era of "paper cities" is new with the 
present generation, for it is positively mel- 
ancholy to read of the disastrous failures 
in this region. Every one who owned land 
on the river front indulged in dreams of 
the prosperity that was to come from the 
development of river navigation, and their 
fertile acres were laid off into town lots 
and sold at absurd prices. Speculation in 
them followed and finally the crash came— 
a disaster which long impeded the river 
towns and actually killed many of them. 

In 1834 Gen. Lewis Cass, who was then 
Secretary of War, came near being 
drowned in the river below Conewago 
Rapids. He was on his way to visit Simon 
Cameron and his ferryman lost his way, 
the night being foggy and stormy. They 
drifted about for hours in extreme peril, 
but were finally rescued. 

Some of the waterfall at York Haven is 
to be utilized by a company to furnish ex- 
tensive electric power to the teity of York. 
Similar schemes for harnessing the Sus- 
quehanna are being talked of at several 
other places, including Columbia and 
Peach Bottom. From the last-named place 
it is expected to transmit the power to 
Baltimore and Philadelphia. 

Marietta, which is four miles above Co- 
lumbia and 23 below Harrisburg, is a town 
which has considerable prosperity because 
of its iron furnaces and foundries. There 
is a population of 2,500, mostly employed 
in the ironworks, which are stretched 
along the railroad track. North of the 
town is a curious country place, the vac- 
cine farm of Dr. Alexander, where hun- 
dreds of cattle are used in preparing virus, 
which is shipped to all parts of this land. 

Opposite Marietta there are a number of 
pleasure resorts, the most romantic of 
which is Wildcat Glen, through which a 

147 



little stream pitches and tosses in pretty 
cascades on its way to the river. On top 
of the hill near there is a clubhouse for 
fishermen and gunners from York. 

Two miles northeast of Marietta, on 
high, level ground, is the old village of 
Maytown, where, in a small farm dwell- 
ing, Simon Cameron was born, in 1799. His 
father was then a tailor and hotelkeeper, 
but had formerly been a tenant farmer 
upon the glebe lands of Donegal Meeting 
House, which is about two miles from 
Maytown. Donegal Church is one of the 
historic homes of Scotch-Irish Presbyteri- 
ans in this region. The Presbytery was 
formed in 1720 and the present stone 
church was erected about 1740. though it 
has since been remodeled. A monument is 
shortly to be placed in the churchyard by 
one of the patriotic societies of wompu. 

As our train stopped at Chickies Station 
for a moment, preparatory to swinging 
around the base of Chiques rock and so 
into Columbia, I saw the most stately old 
mansion I have noticed along the Susque- 
hanna, with a great portico and tall col- 
umns. It was the home of Prof. Samuel 
Stehman Haldeman, one of America's dis- 
tinguished naturalists — by turns a student 
of shells, of rocks, of languages, the author 
of 200 scientific memoirs and long connect- 
ed with the University of Pennsylvania. 
first as professor of natural sciences and 
then as professor of comparative philol- 
ogy. The site, which is unique for its bold, 
romantic profile and delightful prospect. 
was given to him by his father, and in 
1S35 this splendid old home was built from 
the Professor's own plans. It was sur- 
rounded by foreign trees and plants, and 
was in every way such a fitting place for 
a great investigator of nature's secrets 
that it seems a pity that some other noted 
scholar has not made it his home since Dr. 
Haldeman's death, instead of allowing the 
mansion to go into decay. 



148 



XVIII. 

THE STORY OF COLUMBIA. 



Columbia, Lancaster County, Pa., Sept. 
7.— Whether you come from up the river 
or from down the river, the big bridge 
across the Susquehanna from Columbia to 
Wrightsville, on the west bank, is a con- 
spicuous object. It is a bridge which de- • 
serves more than a passing glance because 
a chapter of the Southern Confederacy 
was made by it. 

When Gen. Robert E. Lee made his mem- 
orable invasion of Pennsylvania, with 
the idea of winning triumph for the South 
by cutting off Washington from the North, 
and, perhaps, capturing Philadelphia and 
New York, this bridge, or more correctly 
its predecessor, was the farthest point 
eastward or northward reached by his 
forces. Then came the battle of Gettys- 
burg, disastrous for the Southern cause, 
and the retreat into Virginia made this 
region around Columbia and Wrightsville 
memorable as the "high water mark of 
the Confederacy." 

It was on the evening of Sunday, June 
28, 1803, when Gen. John P.. Gordon, since 
Governor of Georgia and a Senator from 
that State, marched 2,500 Confederate 
troops over the high York county ridge 
behind Wrightsville. He had been sent in 
advance by Gen. .Tubal Early, who re- 
mained at York, and he was following up a 
body of Union militia and convalescents, 
which had withdrawn from York when 
Early drew near. These Union troops were 
now "collected in Wrightsville. but after a 
feeble attempt to resist Gordon's men they 
were led in retreat across the bridge to 
Columbia and the long bridge was set on 
fire to prevent the Southerners crossing 
the Susquehanna. 

149 



The scene made by the burning bridge 
must have been a sublime one. "The 
fire,*-' says an eyewitness, "swept along 
from span to span until the whole struc- 
ture was one roaring mass of angry flames; 
blazing timbers hissed as they dropped in 
the stream and floated toward the big 
dam below. The Southern soldiers lined 
the right bank of the river and swarmed 
over the adjacent hills, interested specta- 
tors of the grand display of fire's awful 
forces. Men. women and children crowded 
the Columbia side almost spellbound as 
the fire shaped fantastic colorings on sky, 
tree and water. Then came panic. The 
retreat of the troops, the firing of the 
bridge and shell and shot falling into the 
* river created a stampede, which continued 
during the night, as the shelling of the 
town was anticipated." 

General Gordon and his soldiers re- 
mained at Wrightsville until the morning 
of the second day following, when the 
word of recall came. Lee had taken his 
stand at Gettysburg, and one of the great 
battles of the world was readv to be 
fought. 

The present fine steel bridge is not the 
immediate successor of the one set afire in 
1863. The Pennsylvania Railroad built one 
in 1868. which remained until a hurricane 
on September 29, 1896. when the structure 
was swept from its piers and thrown into 
the river, a mass of broken and tangled 
debris. A new bridge was put in position 
in the succeeding spring in the record- 
breaking time of 21 days. It is 100 feet 
longer than a mile and has the enormous 
weight of 7.100 tons. It is used by a di- 
vision of the Pennsylvania Railroad run- 
ning from Lancaster and Columbia to 
York. Hanover and Frederick, Md. A 
flooring of boards permits its use for driv- 
ing and walking when it is known that 
trains are not due. 

There is another way in which Columbia 
and Wrightsville are linked with the na- 
tion's history, and it is an incident that 
does not seem to be generally known. In 
1789 when the capital of these United 
States had not been fixed, and when there 
was consequently much log-rolling among 

150 



the States and towns eager for the honor, 
there was a strong movement in favor of 
locating here at Columbia. Indeed, so 
strong was the movement that on Septem- 
ber 4 of that year the lower branch of 
Congress passed a resolution "that the 
permanent seat of the General Govern- 
ment ought to be in some convenient place 
on the banks of the Susquehanna river, in 
the State of Pennsylvania." You must 
understand that since 1733 this had been 
the place for a ferry, which was an im- 
portant link of communication between 
North and South. Its selection was largely 
urged by the Representatives from New 
England, while on the other hand, its chief 
opponents were Southern members, who 
supported the banks of the Potomac for the 
capital, and who had suspicions, it seems, 
that this Susquehanna site was being urged 
and backed by a powerful lobby. At any 
rate the Susquehanna resolution was voted 
down in the Senate, and the next year, 
through the influence of Thomas Jefferson, 
the Potomac was selected. 

Harrisburgers claim that their city was 
the Susquehanna town under considera- 
tion. They also say that the Confederate 
advance reached the river bank opposite 
their city. But I am now giving you "The 
Story of Columbia." 

It is rather curious to read now the 
arguments which were advanced in favor 
of the Susquehanna. It was maintained 
by the New Englanders that John Wright 
and his son John had fixed their ferry at 
"the point nearest the centre of wealth, 
population and influence" and that the 
centre of population was going to stay 
here at Columbia for many years to come. 
Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, echoed 
the general opinion of his colleagues, wc 
are told, when he said it was "perfectly 
romantic" to allow any consideration of 
the country west of the Ohio, as it was 
an "unmeasurable wilderness about whose 
settlement nv one could calculate." To- 
day there are more millions west of the 
Ohio river than east of it, the Capitol at 
Washington has several hundred thou- 
sands within its shadow, while here on the 
Susquehanna, Columbia and Wrightsville 

151 



between them cannot muster more than 
15,000. Odd, indeed, are the vagaries of 
history. 

Columbia and Wrightsville can hardly be 
called handsome towns. They have a pret- 
ty location on the hillsides of the Susque- 
hanna at a point where it is broad, but 
Columbia, while a prosperous small city 
because of its factories, mills and fur- 
naces, has not developed its aesthetic side 
in harmony with its material progress. 
We saw some pretty churches and fine 
homes during a stroll from which we have 
just returned, but they are not the rule. 
Wrightsville is more a village in its type, 
with about one-fifth of Columbia's inhab- 
itants. It has, however, several manufac- 
tories. 

There was a time when Columbia had a 
big trade as the southern end of the State 
system of canals. That day is over, al- 
though the town is still an important 
freight-handling point for the Pennsylva- 
nia and the Philadelphia and Reading, 
which has a road here from Reading. 

Two diminutive ferryboats towing a flat- 
boat for cattle and wagons are the latter- 
day successors of the ferry which was 
carried on at this point by the Wrights. 
After having ridden over and back in a 
lazy fashion, with about four persons for 
companions en voyage, it seems hard for 
me to believe this was once such an im- 
portant ferry point that emigrants often 
had to wait two and three days to get 
themselves, their equipment and their 
stock across to the west side. Yet that is 
what we are told happened in the days of 
the first Wright. 

Wright, by The way, was a man of much 
importance in Pennsylvania's early his- 
tory. He resisted in sturdy fashion the 
encroachments of the Maryland men under 
Cresap, who wished to take possession of 
the land hereabouts for Lord Baltimore; 
he named Lancaster county after his na- 
tive county of Lancashire, in England, and 
was a presiding justice of the County 
Court for many years. His son, John, lived 
on the York county side of the river and 
really carried on the ferry. 



152 



II was not until after their deaths that 
Wright's Ferry on the east bank became 
Columbia and Wright's Ferry on the west 
bank became dignified into Wrightsville. 
The town was laid out and named Colum- 
bia by Samuel Wright, a grandson of the 
pioneer. This occurred about the time of 
the agitation for making Wright's Ferry 
the National Capital, which most likely 
had something to do with the selection of 
the name of Columbia. 

One of the interesting old mansions of 
Columbia is the Wright home, a solid-look- 
ing stone house. It faces on the second 
street back from the river, and its rear 
is above the railroad tracks. In its cen- 
tury and a half of history it has seen many 
exciting incidents. After Braddock's de- 
feat in 1755 it was used as a fort for the 
alarmed settlers of this vicinity, its stone 
walls, narrow windows and double doors 
of oak making it a formidable place. 

Susanna Wright, daughter of Johu 
Wright the elder, was one of the most re- 
markable of colonial dames. She was en- 
dowed with extraordinary intellect, was 
familiar with higher mathematics, was an 
expert in business affairs and law, gave 
much attention to the study of medicine, 
knew a great deal about physics and had 
gifts in the direction of painting. She 
corresponded with Benjamin Franklin, and 
one of the ways in which she gained dis- 
tinction was by turning her attention to 
the culture of silk here at her home. From 
eggs procured from Europe she raised a 
large number of silkworms, and then sent 
the raw silk product to Paris to be wover>. 
Through Franklin she gave a piece of the 
silk to the Queen of England, who in turn 
presented her with a silver tankard yet 
in the possession of the Wright family. 
It is rather interesting to note that there 
now exists a silk factory in the place 
where Miss Wright carried on the first silk- 
culture experiments in America. 

Susanna Wright, though she never mar- 
ried, had her heart romance just the same. 
Among her father's earliest neighbors and 
friends was Samuel Blunston, surveyor of 
the region. He "took up" land near that 
of John Wright, but when he came to 

153 



buiM a house he found no spot on it that 
suited him. Susanna Wright supplied him 
with a site by deeding to him a corner of 
a plot bought by her father in her name, 
and from that time the two were close 
friends. Blunston was a widower, his 
wife having died soon after he came into 
the neighborhood. Susanna probably never 
married him because she wished to devote 
her time to caring for her younger brothers 
and looking after her father. But she 
helped Blunston in his surveying work by 
her knowledge of mathematics, and she 
gave him much prudent advice and coun- 
sel, after the manner of a wise Colonial 
Quakeress. And when he died in 1746 it 
was found that he had bequeathed to "Su- 
sanna Wright, spinster," a life-interest in 
such property as he had. She survived 
him many years, living in the home he 
had built on the ground she had given him. 
A part of this old house is still standing 
in Columbia and has much attraction 
among the many familiar with the story 
of Susanna Wright's love affair. 

There is still another old home in this 
neighborhood worth attention. It is a brick 
dwelling over in Wrightsville, near the 
railroad station in that town. It was the 
home of Gen. James Ewing, who married 
a daughter of John Wright, Jr., and who 
commanded a brigade of the Flying Camp 
under General Washington. For a time it 
was the enforced abiding place of Dr. John 
Connolly, a notorious Tory. Connolly was 
a half-brother of General Ewing, a younger 
son of his mother. 

The younger brother was a creature of 
Lord Drumore, royal Governor of Virginia, 
and represented him in sundry malodorous 
schemes to oust the Pennsylvanians who 
had settled along the Ohio. He chose the 
British side in the Revolution and got a 
colonel's commission from General Gage, 
his plan being to organize a regiment of 
Indians and make cruel attacks on the bor- 
der settlements. But he was arrested at 
Hagerstown on his way west and was only 
released upon General Ewing's pledge that 
the Doctor would not leave the Ewing 
farm at Wrightsville. He was soon plot- 
ting again, was rearrested, exchanged and 

154 



wont into Canada. When the war was 
over he bobbed np here with a scheme to 
enlist dissatisfied American officers in an 
expedition to capture Louisiana and set up 
a separate government, a plan very similar 
to the later one of Aaron Burr. 

It is narrated that on one occasion Con- 
nolly angered his brother so much at the 
dinner table by boasts of how the British 
would soon crush the rebels that General 
Ewing jumped up, seized the Doctor by 
the throat and would have throttled him 
had not Mrs. Ewing interfered. 

In the southern end of Columbia, near 
the river, is a rolling mill office, which to 
those who know it recalls a romantic story 
closely identified with the writings of sev- 
eral English novelists. That office was once 
the home of Robert Barber, high sheriff of 
Lancaster county, about 1740, and in a 
log jail which Barber built near his bousp 
was confined for a time James Annesley, 
subsequently a prominent character in 
England as claimant of the Earldom of 
Anglesey. 

The story of James Annesley's adven- 
tures and persecutions forms the ground- 
work of Charles Reade's well-known novel 
"The Wandering Heir," and is also in- 
corporated into portions of Scott's "Guy 
Mannering," Smollett's "Peregrine Pickle" 
and a fourth novel, "Florence Macarthy." 

Annesley was a son of Lord Altham, a 
grandson of the first Earl of Anglesey. 
After his father's death in 1727, his fath- 
er's brother kidnapped the nephew and 
had him sold as an indentured servant in 
Philadelphia, through which action the 
uncle afterward was enabled to become 
the Earl of Anglesey. The lad's service 
was bought by a Lancaster county farmer, 
whose daughter fell in love with the serv- 
ant, as did also a young Indian girl. These 
embarrassments caused Annesley to flee, 
but he was caught and kept in this jail 
at Columbia until returned to his master. 

He was recognized as the heir to the 
Anglesey title by two Irishmen who hap- 
pened to visit his master's farm, and they 
became su much interested in his story 
that they offered to go back with him to 
help prove his rightful inheritance. There 

155 



was a big sensation in London on his re- 
turn. His uncle contested the charges 
against him by assertions that Annesley 
was not really the son of his brother, but 
Annesley's cause was justified by the 
courts, though he never had money enough 
to prosecute them to the end and gain the 
title and estates. His uncle remained in 
possession and there were several bloody 
quarrels between them and their followers. 
As a Southerner I noticed the number 
of colored persons here in Columbia and 
soon found that their presence was due to 
the fact that this city was the terminus 
of one of the most prolific "underground 
railroads" in slave times. The escaping 
black men were sent from one friendly 
farmhouse to another across York county 
until they arrived at Wrightsville, where 
they were aided by William Wright, a 
grandson of the Quaker pioneer. Many 
of those helped to freedom in this way 
never got farther than Columbia or other 
near-by river towns. Some have made 
money in various business pursuits. One 
was a big lumber dealer here. 

A resident of Columbia at the present, 
time has recently come into prominence as 
a poet. I refer to Lloyd Mifflin, whose 
books of sonnets and other short poems, 
"At the Gates of Song," "The Slopes of 
Helicon" and "The Hills," have been pro- 
nounced fine by the best critics of poetry. 
As a conductor said, his home is "right up 
the hill from the station," a painted brick 
house of comfortable appearance, standing 
on a corner, with ivy overhanging parts of 
it in a picturesque way. 

There dwells Mr. Lloyd Mifflin, artist 
and poet like his father, the late J. Hous- 
ton Mifflin. In his verses much of the 
country roundabouts is seen to be mir- 
rored, for he loves nature's moods. Some 
of his sonnets have unfolded to me new. 
charms of this part of the Susquehanna. 



156 



XIX. 

THE LAND OF BIG BARNS. 



Columbia, Lancaster County, Pa., Sept. 
9.— Today a series of three pleasing ex- 
cursions out of Columbia has added much 
to our enjoyment of this portion of the 
Susquehanna Valley. 

First of all we had a trolley ride on the 
turnpike to Lancaster city past Senator 
Quay's new home; past the fertile farms 
which have made this region so famous; 
past "Wheatlands," long the home of 
President James Buchanan; past the at- 
tractive group of buildings occupied * by 
Franklin and Marshall College; and into 
the heart of a busy and pretty city. 

Returning to Columbia we crossed the 
river to Wrightsville and drove south, par- 
allel with the river, to see the remains of 
the fort erected by Col. Thomas Cresap, 
which was the scene of many lively en- 
counters during the boundary warfare of 
Maryland and Pennsylvania. 

Then, after getting back to Columbia 
we again took a trolley car and by a cir- 
cuitous climb reached the summit of 
Chiques Rock, the palisade which juts out 
boldly in a bend of the river two miles 
above Columbia. From there we had a 
splendid view, that was the more enjoyable 
because we had become familiar with the 
valleys over which our eyes roamed. 

Senator Quay's estate is about two miles 
east of Columbia on the turnpike to Lan- 
caster. It had been one of the star farms 
of the neighborhood for years before its 
purchase by the Pennsylvania Republican 
leader, but the interest in it is, of course, 
redoubled by the fame of the present own- 
er, and I noticed that all eyes were turned 
curiously toward it as our car whizzed 
along the pike in front. 

157 



The house is not a striking one. .architec- 
turally speaking. It is of wood, painted 
yellow, and is large and roomy; so large 
and roomy that it suggests a summer hotel, 
a suggestion that is enhanced by the red 
and white striped awnings which stood out 
conspicuously before each of the many 
windows. Porches around the ground 
floor, of course, add much to the comfort 
of the Senator's family and visitors, while 
east of the house is a grove of trees. 

The two hundred yards between the 
road and the dwelling are not taken up 
by lawns, drives and shade trees, but by 
a big field of healthy looking tobacco. It 
almost seems as if the Senator were 
anxious to let his constituents know that 
he is a farmer. Back of the house and 
to the right and left tall com and fields 
of waving grain show that it is indeed a 
fertile farm. The driveway into the 
house from the road is some distance to 
the west, down a shaded avenue leading 
to a big barn. 

Mr. Quay was born in another fertile 
country like this, across the Susquehanna, 
at Dillsburg, York county, and though he 
has lived most of the time since at Beaver 
Falls, in the northwestern part of the 
State, it is said by the people of this 
neighborhood that this Lancaster county 
purchase is not merely for summer use, 
but will be a permanent home. It is cer- 
tainly convenient to the cities in which the 
Senator takes most interest. Philadelphia, 
Harrisburg and Washington. His son, 
Major Quay, lives permanently upon the 
farm. 

Lancaster county is emphatically 'the 
land of big barns." One does not have 
to go far on the trolley trip to Lancas- 
ter to learn this. The tracks follow the 
turnpike and the turnpike runs along a 
high ridge, from which there is a fine 
view of fertile farms on both sides for a 
number of miles, while occasionally tall 
spires and the haze of distant smoke be- 
token the presence of villages in the 
midst of one of the fairest and most pros- 
perous farming regions of this country. 
It is a country of rolling hills and gently 
sloping vales, with occasional rocky dells 

158 



of no great depth and low cascades, util- 
ized for grist mills, factories and machine 
shops; a country of tobacco, wheat, rye, 
maize, potato and turnip fields, of or- 
chards, meadows and patches of woodland; 
a country salubrious and wealthy, dotted 
with hamlets, villages, towns and con- 
spicuous barns. 

Some years ago the descendants of the 
Germans who wisely chose this region 
had their ire excited by a book called "The 
Pennsylvania Dutch," in which it was as- 
serted that the dwellers here paid more 
attention to their crops and stock than 
they did to themselves and their families; 
that the barns were large out of propor- 
tion just as the houses were cramped out 
of proportion. I do not echo this, for the 
homes all seem to me to be wearing an air 
of comfort and cheerfulness, of thrift and 
neatness. 

And I, for one, admire the great barns— 
large, airy and commodious, well painted 
or stuecoed, their barnyard sides supported 
on heavy stone walls, while on the other 
side earthen slopes lead up to the big front 
doors. We rode past dozens of them today, 
some right beside the turnpike, others look- 
ing more majestic by their distance from 
the road. 

In our drive from TVrightsville to Cre- 
sap's fort this afternoon it was evident 
that the same thrift and prosperity pre- 
vailed on the farms of York county. The 
drive was about four miles, and the road 
led over a ridge south of Wrightsville and 
down into a fertile valley, which ought to 
bear its proper Indian name of Conojohela, 
but which is too generally corrupted into 
"Jockly" or "Conojockly." It is a source 
of constant regret to me that these beauti- 
ful Indian names, of which there are so 
many along the Susquehanna, should be so 
often vulgarized. You will observe that in 
writing of the high rock, to which we also 
paid a visit this afternoon, I have invari- 
ablv spelled it "Chiques." Up here they 
usually spell it "Chickies." That is what 
1 calf mutilation. It was bad enough to 
have the original noble name of "Chiquesa- 
lunga" split in half. 



159 



All this region was once claimed by Mary- 
land, and our ride toCresap's place brought 
vividly to the fore the circumstances un- 
der which it was fought for and lost. The 
whole difficulty was the ambiguity of the 
two charters given by the Kings of Eng- 
land to Penn and Calvert. Each tried to 
claim all that seemed due under the widest 
interpretation of their documents, and 
Cresap was the man who made a niche in 
history for himself by moving up here to 
Conojohela Valley and stoutly asserting the 
rights of Lord Baltimore in a land that 
was just becoming peopled with Pennsyl- 
vanians. He came here in 1732. and know- 
ing that there would likely be trouble, he 
immediately built near the river a strong 
blockhouse, which has always been known 
as Cresap's fort. 

The foundation walls of the old fort are 
still standing, after a century and two- 
thirds, and were the cause of our drive 
here, because of their historic interest. 
They form the lower port of the farmhouse 
of Mr. John L. Detwiler, and it is easy to 
see that they were built to withstand at- 
tack. 

The story of '"Cresap's War" which fol- 
lowed can be read in any history of Penn- 
sylvania or Maryland, though I must con- 
fess that if you read the historians of the 
former State you will be inclined to think 
Cresap a marauder of the deepest dye, in- 
stead of regarding him as a daring pioneer, 
zealous in upholding the title of the land 
Lord Baltimore had given him. 

The bloody part of the trouble began 
with the killing of Knowles Daunt, a Lan- 
caster county man. who had come with 
the Sheriff of that county for the purpose 
of arresting Cresap in his fort. The ex- 
citement grew more intense when Cresap 
was given a commission as a Maryland 
magistrate and captain of militia and 
went about with a force of armed men, 
surveying lands, dispossessing Germans 
who had Pennsylvania titles, collecting 
Maryland taxes and in general ruling af- 
fairs on the west side of the Susquehanna, 
which was asserted to be a part of Balti- 
more county. Maryland. Finally, in Sep- 
tember, 173(5, the Supreme Court of Penn- 

160 



sylvania issued a warrant for the arrest 
of Cresap "for the murder of Knowles 
Daunt, and divers other high crimes and 
misdemeanors," and the Lancaster Sheriff 
crossed the river with a posse at night to 
serve it. Cresap, with six men, was shut 
in his blockhouse, and he fired on the 
Sheriff. Then the Sheriff set fire to the 
fort, and Cresap, his wife and his men 
were obliged to rush out, and were cap- 
tured after some more fighting. The leader 
was taken in irons to Philadelphia, but 
even as a prisoner he asserted his spirit by 
saying tauntingly, as he got his first 

glimpse of Philadelphia: "D it, this is 

one of the fairest towns of Maryland." 

Cresap was soon released and afterward 
became a prominent character on the west- 
ern frontier of Maryland. The border 
warfare continued at intervals until 
stopped by an agreement between the 
Penns and the Calverts. 

The share which Cresap's wife took in 
the troubles around this old blockhouse is 
not the least interesting part of the his- 
tory. She frequently mounted a horse and 
rode with her husband and his armed 
force, and during the attacks on his block- 
house she showed that she could handle 
a musket as well as any of the men. Once 
she was on her way to join her hus- 
band at a point near Wrightsville, and 
four miles north of their fort she saw a 
flatboat filled with men crossing the river. 
A bugle which she carried was quickly 
souuded as a warning to her husband and 
his men, while Hannah Cresap rode rap- 
idly back to the fort and led reinforce- 
ments. This caused the Lancaster county 
men to change their minds and turn the 
boat back. 

Some writer has said that the vicinity 
of Chiques Rock reminds him of the Po- 
tomac at Harper's Ferry. I partly agree 
with him. The hills are precipitous here, 
just as they are around there, but the 
river is broader and grander to look down 
upon from Chiques Rock, and then, too, 
its position in a sharp bend of the river 
gives it a second advantage. It is a fa- 
vorite point for the people of Columbia, 
wlm picnic beneath the trees back of the 

161 



rock and from its outer edge take in the 
view, which in all includes nearly 20 
miles 6f the river, in addition to a section 
of Lancaster county to the northward and 
the bit of York county between the river 
and the hillsides. It is not possible to see 
over the York headlands into that county, 
neither is it possible to see Columbia or 
Lancaster or that region on the east side 
of the river. High hills intervene. 

The Susquehanna lies several hundred 
feet beneath the observation point, its 
placid current turned aside by an occa- 
sional bowlder or broken into gentle rap- 
ids by some ledge of rocks. The silence 
which it seems to inspire is broken only 
by the sound of a train crossing the long 
bridge yonder to Wrightsville or following 
the track to Harrisburg right at the base 
of the rock. One or two parties are out 
in canoes paddling here and there and 
recalling to ns thoughts of how one Indian 
from this rock must oft have watched an- 
other in a bark canoe on the waters afar 
off. 

One canoe was heading up stream and 
we watched it until it passed the busy 
town of Marietta, which lies stretched out 
along the east bank for a couple of miles. 
Another canoe was coming toward us from 
the same vicinity and we saw this hug 
the west bank and then, coming across at 
the foot of our rock, follow the east bank 
until lost to sight behind the hill which 
prevents us from seeing Columbia. 

A popular American writer said some 
years ago, "One of the loveliest landscapes 
on which my eyes have fallen is the scene 
which, on a sunshiny day, one surveys 
from the summit of the Chiques Rock. The 
whole region roundabout is a miracle of 
God's handiwork— not mountainous, but 
hilly, as if. in Mrs. Browning's phrase, 'His 
finger touched, but did not press in mak- 
ing it.' " 

Chiques Rock is a favorite point of ob- 
servation for Mr. Lloyd Mifflin, the poet 
who was born and has lived his life here. 
Sonnets describing the varying beauties 
of the river as seen from this high point 
at all hours of the day can easily be 
picked out of his books, just as it is possi- 

162 



ble to find in others enchanting descrip- 
tions of the life on the beautiful farms of 
Lancaster county. One of his poems bears 
the title of "The Susquehanna From the 
Cliffs," and another, entitled '"Winter's 
Here, Indeed," describes the Susquehanna 
in the days of snow, when "ice the darling 
river blocks," when "summer's skiffs are 
laid on snowy banks," when "the ferry 
flat comes not," and the wild ducks fly in 
abundance overhead. 

But to me today one of his prettiest river 
descriptions seems to be "The Evening 
Comes," in which he says: 

The evening comes; the boatman, with his net, 
Poles his canoe and leaves it on the shore; 
So low the stream he does not use the oar; 

The umber rocks rise like a parapet 

Up through the purple and the violet, 
And the faint-heard, never-ending roar 
Of moving waters lessens more and more, 

While each vague object looms a silhouette. 

The light is going, but low overhead 
Poises the glory of the evening star; 
The fisher, silent on the rocky bar, 

Drops his still line in pools of fading red 
And in the sky, where all the day lies dead, 
The clouded moon unsheathes her scimitar. 

Thomas Moran has beautifully illustrated 
some of Mr. Mifflin's poems, and I should 
dearly love to have his picture of twilignt 
on the Susquehanna as thus described. 



163 



XX. 

AMID CHARMING HIGHLANDS 



Port Deposit, Cecil County, Md„ Sept. 
12.— Our trip to the outlet of the Susque- 
hanna at Havre tie Grace and Perryville 
from the little city of Columbia is one 
which will linger long in the memory. 

Shut in as it is by high, steep ridges, this 
portion of the river, the last before its wa- 
ters are spread out into broad Chesapeake 
bay, has been very appropriately called 
the "Highlands of the Susquehanna." And 
in the opinion of our party there are few 
river highlands or palisades more enchant- 
ing. 

One rocky spur after another juts out 
into the river and forms a series of bold, 
natural abutments upon both sides. At 
the base of these high bluffs a railroad 
creeps along on the east bank and the Tide- 
water canal has been cut on the west bank, 
both of them often so near the river that 
it seems as if train or boat would fall over 
into the water or else jam its nose into 
some titanic wall of granite or slate. Along 
the hillsides between the jagged rocks are 
wild growths, a number of creeks and 
streams and frequent deep ravines. Some- 
times there are homes, but the ridges are 
too rugged to permit of much cultivation, 
and so the hills have been left practically 
undisturbed, save where rocks were blasted 
to make way for canal or railroad. 

Between the hills is the river, so narrow 
at some places that one is tempted to try 
and throw a stone across, and again spread 
out so as to make room for rocky islets, 
ponderous, grim-looking bowlders and occa- 
sionally an island large enough to afford a 
chance for trees or tall grass. At least a 
dozen times some distinctly marked ledge 

164 



of rocks extends from bank to bank, and 
over these the river pitches into rapids, 
swirling, tossing and foaming, with a 
strength which surprises one, bnt which 
shows what dangers the lumbermen and 
boatmen met when they formerly de- 
scended the river. The drouth this sum- 
mer has made the keen edges of the rocks 
even more apparent, and so has added to 
the dread which they inspire. 

The great bowlders in midstream rise up 
in such grotesque and unnatural shapes 
that we instinctively feel that some tre- 
mendous force grimly fashioned them in 
the primeval ages. They and the stony 
ridges which cast their shadows across the 
river are never-failing sources of interest 
to the geologist. They must have been 
among the earliest of the world's creations 
and are so hard that an ordinary hammer 
can do nothing to them. 

Nature's climax is in the seven miles be- 
tween Safe Harbor and McCall's Ferry. 
There the hills are steepest, the river wild- 
est, the bowlders and rocky islets most 
abundant. McCall's Ferry is the point 
watched with greatest apprehension in the 
spring by the people of Port Deposit. It is 
21 miles above Port Deposit and 18 below 
Columbia. At that point the river forms 
a gorge so narrow that if the ice jams there 
in its descent there is almost sure to be a 
disastrous flood when it breaks again. 

A journey through this region can be 
made by train in two hours from Columbia 
to Perr'vville. The road is a branch of the 
Pennsylvania, and there are two trains a 
day each way, one in the morning and the 
other in the evening. In the evening the 
trip is especially enchanting, for the sun- 
sets are matchless as seen from the car 
windows, giving a tinge of amber and gold 
to the hills and river and softening the 
grimness of the rocks into delightful pic- 
turesqueness. 

If you are as fortunate as we were and 
can get a seat in the rear of the train the 
charm of the trip will be heightened, for 
you can look back upon the road's winding 
curves and see how the track is overhung 
with trees which give delightful green vis- 
tas and with rocks in whose fantastic 

165 



shapes imagination can picture many odd 
faces. A conductor who knew the region 
by heart, its stories and especial points of 
interest, won our warm gratitude by his 
talkativeness. From him we learned much 
that is told in this letter. 

In front of Columbia the river is a mile 
broad, while at the borough of Washing- 
ton, called "Little Washington" some- 
times, ii is two miles across to the west 
bank. Washington was the site of an Indian 
village and is three miles below Columbia. 
Between the two towns is the broken dam 
which once fed water to the Tidewater 
canal on the opposite bank. From Wash- 
ington there is a considerable view up and 
down the river. Opposite to it is the river 
end of the Conojohela Valley, where Cre- 
sap made his home. 

Beiow Washington borough the river con- 
tracts again and the hills come close to the 
river, to continue that way until Port De- 
posit is reached. The first high ridge is 
Turkey Hill, which to the student of Penn- 
sylvania history is a place of interest, 
because on it was a stockaded fort of 
the Susquehannock Indians, where they 
met with a terrible defeat about the 
year 1675 in a bloody attack by Seneca 
Indians from up the river and 'where a 
feeble remnant, then known as Conestoga 
Indians, was brutally massacred in 1763 
by «i party of lawless pioneers, called 
''the Paxton boys." The attack by the 
Seneeas in 1675 was the culmination of 
a long series of struggles between what we 
may cail the up-river Indians and the down- 
river Indians. The Seneeas were the bet- 
ter warriors and the downfall of the Sus- 
quehanuocks was only delayed by the aid 
of the colony of Maryland. Once a force of 
Marylanders under Col. Ninian Beall ad- 
ministered a crushing blow to the Seneeas, 
which caused the name of Beall to be long 
borne in mind along the Susquehanna. 

Of the massacre by the "Paxton boys" I 
have already said something. There was 
nothing to justify their slaughter of In- 
dian squaws and children. 

Large quantities of stone arrowheads 
and a few small cannon balls have been 
found in the vicinity of Conestoga, while 

166 



in the river out from Safe Harbor, which 
is at the base of Turkey Hill, are the in- 
teresting "Sculptured Rocks," frequently 
studied by archaeologists, though now 
much damaged by time, weather and ice 
floes. These rocks contain a large number 
of hieroglyphics and a few pictures of ani- 
mals of the cat kind. Similar inscriptions 
are found on other rocks lower down the 
river, including the Bald Friars, which are 
20 miles below Safe Harbor. 

Safe Harbor has already been spoken of 
as the north end of the finest part of the 
palisades scenery. It is a cluster of houses 
back of the mouth of Conestoga creek, 
which drains Lancaster county, and the 
name of which has been applied to those 
large canvas-covered market wagons made 
so familiar through Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania by the descendants of G-erman 
pioneers. 

In this region there are a number of cot- 
tages occupied in the summer by persons 
from York and Lancaster. A few are 
private homes, but many are the headquar- 
ters of rod and gun clubs, the members of 
which find fine sport. 

Not far from York Furnace Station on 
the east bank there has recently been dis 
covered a remarkable hillside hole called 
the "Wind Cave." It is evidently several 
hundred feet deep, though it is said that 
no one has as yet fully explored it. Its 
name is derived from the fact that when 
standing in the entrance a current of air is 
felt so strong that it will blow a light 
handkerchief away. This makes it proba- 
ble that there is another outlet in the hill- 
side which has not yet been found. 

The farmer folk back in the hills have 
a curious name for those river dwellers 
who, by picking up driftwood, by fishing 
and by boating, get enough to maintain 
themselves. They call them "Algerines." 
an echo of the times when American skip- 
pers feared the pirates of Algeria. 

Tucquan creek, which comes down into 
the river two miles above McCall's Ferry, 
goes through a romantic glen which at- 
tracts many visitors and which is also 
rich in botanical specimens. The creek 
rises six miles back in the country, and 

167 



its course is through a ravine abounding 
in picturesqueness. Rocks of every shape, 
crowned with trees or hidden beneath 
ferns, greet the eye. Sometimes the 
stream is a gentle rivulet, then a minia- 
ture whirlpool, and again it plunges 
through a rough chasm. About one mile 
above the river it passes through a deep 
gorge known as the "Devil's Hole." 

There are several interesting stories told 
in connection with a bridge which stood 
acrcss the rocky gorge at McCall's Ferry 
in 1816, but which was not renewed after 
an ice flood had carried it away. Thaddeus 
Stevens, the noted Pennsylvania states- 
man, often called "The Great Commoner," 
relates that after having studied law while 
teaching at York he found that he could 
be more easily admitted to the bar at 
Belair, Harford county, Md., than in 
York. He was asked only three ques- 
tions, after which he was promised a cer- 
tificate on condition that he would "set 
up" champagne for his examiners, a bar- 
gain that was carried out so well that 
when Stevens left Belair next morning he 
had only $3.50 and his certificate. He 
headed for Lancaster, where he after- 
ward became a leading lawyer, and in 
crossing the Susquehanna at McCall's 
Ferry his horse took fright at some tim- 
bers of the new bridge, and he would 
have drowned had it not been for the 
bravery of a man working on the bridge. 

Theodore Burr was the engineer who 
built this bridge at McCall's. and it is 
told that he was much annoyed while 
working here at McCall's by a Presby- 
terian minister of the neighborhood who 
gave large amounts of advice as to how a 
bridge should be built. Finally Burr posted 
notices that he intended to preach a ser- 
mon on an island in the river on the fol- 
lowing Sunday. He had a large congrega- 
tion, while the minister had a slim one. 
"What made you start to preach?" the lat 
ter asked the bridge builder on the follow- 
ing day. "Oh, I don't know," was Burr's 
reply. "You seem to understand bridge- 
building so thoroughly that I thought I 
might have to change places with you." 

When we reached Peach Bottom, which 
is 27 miles below Columbia and 12 above 
168 



Port Deposit, we were in the heart of the 
great slate region. This could be seen 
from piles of split slate along the railroad 
tracks and more especially by a study of 
Slate Point, on the opposite side of the 
river, an interesting geological curiosity. 
It is the eastern terminus of a valuable 
vein of slate and is a perpendicular bluff, 
rising more than 300 feet above the river. 
This altitude gives it a fine view up and 
down the river and hence Slate Point is 
much visited by lovers of romantic scenery. 

The existence of slate in the rocky hii'ls 
on both sides of the river was known in 
Colonial times and the graves of many of 
the pioneer settlers were marked with 
slate slabs. But the preparation of the 
slate for commercial purposes, especially 
for roofing, is a development of the pres- 
ent century. It was largely promoted by a 
Baltimore company about 1812. 

Today the quarries are almost entirely in 
the hands of Welsh folk. There are, per- 
haps, a score of them, mostly on the west 
side of the river. The process of sawing, 
splitting and trimming the slate into shin- 
gles is an interesting one. 

When reading as a boy about Peach 
Bottom I was always curious to learn 
whence came the name. Yesterday I tried 
to find out. but have not satisfied myself 
yet. The explanation which I got was that 
this region was settled by a man named 
Johnson in 1725 and that he chose the 
name of Peach for these fertile "bottom'' 
lands on the river because of the abund- 
ance of the American redwood free, which 
in spring and early summer made the hill- 
sides seem as if covered with large peach 
orchards. 

In and around Peach Bottom several 
noted Americans were born. The most fa- 
mous was Robert Fulton, in whose honor 
the township has since been named and 
whose birthplace is now called Fulton 
House. It is a station on a narrow-gaug^ 
road which runs from Peach Bottom to 
the town of Oxford, and is seven miles 
from the river. The house has been re- 
modeled, but the old foundation and part 
of the old walls are still there. The nar- 
row-gauge road runs through the old farm 

169 



and close to the buildings. Fulton's grand- 
father settled here about 1734. He was of 
Scotch-Irish birth, as were most of the 
pioneers in this rocky ridge region. The 
father of the steamboat man lived here for 
only a few years after the son's birth, in 
1765. He became involved in money mat- 
ters, the old place passed into other hands 
and he removed to Lancaster. 

In the same neighborhood was the birth- 
place of Dr. David Ramsay, the first 
American historian and afterward a noted 
Son.th Carolinian, and of his brother. Col. 
Nathaniel Ramsay, the hero of the Mary- 
land Line in the battle of Monmouth. 

Near Delta, which is a couple of miles 
back from the west side of the river, is the 
birthplace of James Ross, a noted Fed- 
eralist, Senator from Pennsylvania from 
1797 to 1803 and a prominent character 
in the early history of Pittsburg. Peach 
Bottom township was also the boyhood 
home of Hugh Henry Brackenridge, by 
turns army chaplain, editor, author and 
jurist. He. too, was identified with Pitts- 
burg at the same period as Ross, and 
figured in the "Whisky Insurrection." 

A mile or so below Peach Bottom is 
the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary, the 
noted Mason and Dixon line. From the 
journal of the English surveyors, whose 
names the line bears, we learn that the 
Susquehanna is 23V± miles from the north- 
east corner of Maryland. A conspicuous 
rock in the middle of the river is on the 
line, which is also indicated by a marker 
beside the railroad. 

Local traditions say that Mason and 
Dixon and their corps of men were re- 
garded as soothsayers or necromancers by 
people who lived around Peach Bottom in 
the year of their visit. They were very 
generally called "the star gazers," and the 
curiosity and apprehension of the ignorant 
were much excited by their scientific ob- 
servations of the heavens. This impres- 
sion was not lessened by the antics of a 
pet bear carried with them. 

Bald Friar, in Maryland, not far below 
the State line, was a ferry in Colonial 
days, and has some historical interest be- 
cause it was the Susquehanna ferry se- 

170 



lected by Lafayette when he was march- 
ing his division of the army southward for 
the campaign which resulted in the sur- 
render at Yorktown. The ferry is said to 
have received its name because it was kept 
at one time by a baldheaded man named 
Fry, hence Bald Fry's ferry; which is very 
unlikely, in my humble judgment. 

At Conowingo, which is not far below 
Bald Friar, there is a bridge across the 
water, the only one for 40 miles of the 
river, it leads across to a paper mill on 
the west bank. 

From the Maryland line southward to 
Port Deposit there are frequent traces of 
a canal along the line of the railroad on 
the east hank. This was the old Maryland 
canal, one of the first works of its kind in 
this country, started in 1783, but not in 
operation until 180.1. it created the town 
of Port Deposit, but died out with the 
building of the larger canal on the west 
bank 60 years ago, and was long ago aban- 
doned. 

Four miles above Port Deposit the rail- 
road crosses Octoraro creek by a bridge, in 
excavating for which several skeletons 
were found which were evidently the re- 
mains of persons of large size and were 
most likely Susquehannoek Indians. When 
Capt. John Smith saw the Susquehannoeks 
at the mouth of the river in 1608 he says 
the chief "had calves three-quarters of a 
yard about and the rest of his limbs so 
answerable to that proportion that he 
seemed the goodliest man he ever saw." 
All of which description would suit a man 
about 10 feet high, so that it is probable 
the doughty Virginian was drawing on his 
imagination for his measurements. 

Just above Port Deposit we saw the rap- 
ids which blocked Captain Smith's jour- 
ney up the river, and which caused him 
to give the name of Smith's Falls to this 
splendid stream. Many of us doubtless 
rejoice because Smith's Falls did not be- 
come a fixture for the Susquehanna. Where 
would romance or poetry have been with 
such a name? 



171 



XXI. 

AT THE RIVER'S MOUTH. 



Havre de Grace. Harford County. 
Mi)., Sept. 14.— Five years ago 1 heard 
President Oilman, of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity, in an address to the pupils of 
Tome Institute, over yonder in Porl De- 
posit, remind them that they were living 
not only in a region of much attractive- 
ness, but in a country replete with stories 
of times far past. 

What Dr. Gilman said then recurred to 
me again and again today, and I gave it 
a much wider significance as I watched 
the trains scurry across the Susquehanna 
on the two big bridges of the Pennsyl- 
vania and Baltimore and Ohio Railroads. 
The children of Pert Deposit may have 
been largely unaware of the historic in- 
terest of the country round about, but the 
travelers on the many trains that fly past 
here are more densely ignorant. They 
look out from the car windows upon the 
broad river as it passes into the still 
broader waters of the bay, and they call 
it pretty or tine after the momentary 
glance. lint how much more interested 
they would be were the legends and sto- 
ries of Havre de Grace and Port Deposit 
known. 

The special subject of Dr. Oilman's ad- 
dress upon the occasion referred to was 
the island which is in the centre of the 
Susquehanna's mouth, its lower end not 
far from the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, 
while its upper end serves to furnish sup- 
port for the higher and newer bridge of 
the Baltimore and Ohio. Today it is Wat- 
son's Island, and a truck farm. But in 
early days, nearly three centuries ago, it 
was known as Palmer's, after its first 
settler, Edward Palmer, a man from 

172 



Shakespeare's county, a graduate of Ox- 
ford, distinguished in his time as an anti- 
quary, and an uncle of the unfortunate 
Sir Thomas Overbury. 

Dr. Gilman pointed out that the island 
is distinctly linked with the earliest his- 
tory of education in America, for Palmer 
made a will, in which he bequeathed this 
island to his alma mater on condition that 
Oxford University would undertake the 
establishment of a college in the New 
World, to be called the Oxford Academy of 
Virginia. This was in 1624, and ante- 
dated the bequests of John Harvard in 
New England. The English university 
never undertook the bequest because more 
direct heirs stood first. Palmer died in 
1625. 

For Marylanders Palmer and his island 
have another especial story. Before Lord 
P>altimore's colonists came to St. Marys, 
even before William Clayborne settled out 
there on Kent Island, Palmer and asso- 
ciates had taken possession of this island 
"at the bottom of the Susquehanna" as a 
convenient place for trading with the In- 
dians of the bay and river. They were 
thus the first white settlers in Maryland. 
A writer of their time asserts that Palmer 
actually entered into the trading scheme 
to raise funds for his school plan, but 
that the dishonesty and bad capacity of 
some of his agents caused losses instead 
of gains. 

Havre de Grace is such a placid town 
nowadays that it requires an effort to pic- 
ture the excitement and terrible incidents 
which accompanied its burning by the 
British on the morning of May 3, 1813, 
more than a year prior to the unsuccess- 
ful attack on Baltimore and during a 
predatory incursion up to the head of the 
Chesapeake. I was fortunte to get hold 
of an almost contemporaneous account. 
"The Conflagration of Havre de Grace," 
and this morning I read it while we were 
standing on a bluff at Perry ville, on the 
east bank of the river, with the whole 
scenic setting for the town's tragedy 
spread out before me. 

In the early sun the town as I viewed it 
across the river's mile reminded me strong- 

173 



ly of those Canadian villages which seem 
so quaint to the steamboat traveler on 
the St. Lawrence. North of the town is a 
hill marking the termination of the high 
ridge which closely follows the river on 
its west side for the last 50 miles of its 
course. In the flat country at the base of 
this hill, but set back from the river by 
a moderate bluff, lies the town, its many 
houses half hid from the Perryville side 
by the tops of trees. At its south end is 
the low point which juts out where the 
river ends and the bay begins, and which 
is occupied by a whitewashed lighthouse. 

On this point militia from the neighbor- 
hood hastily constructed a battery when 
the British fleet anchored half a dozen 
miles down the bay. near Spesuria Island, 
clearly visible from where I stood this 
morning. There were several weeks of 
watchful, anxious days and fearful nights, 
and the British fleet lingered so long out 
there that the people on land thought 
there would be no attack and grew less 
careful. Suddenly at daybreak on a clear 
day was the alarm that the British were 
coming, and on the bay could be seen a 
score of barges laden with redcoats. It 
must have made a fine picture, though 
naturally a terrifying one. to the Havre 
de Grace households. Rockets and shells 
began to be thrown from the bnrges as 
they headed from the bay into the river, 
and in panic the women and children and 
most of the militia fled to the hill north 
of the town already mentioned. The few 
who remained did what they could from 
the battery on the point to check the on- 
coming British, but they were unsuccess- 
ful, and the barges passed the point, made 
a landing on the river side and captured 
the battery from behind, taking the brave 
fellows prisoners. 

The town was already on fire from shot 
and shell, and to these the British sol- 
diers soon added the torch. They went 
about plundering in small parties, helping 
themselves to what they fancied, and then 
setting the dwellings ablaze. Several la- 
dies finally ventured back into the burn- 
ing village and by their entreaties saved 
the remaining buildings. 

174 



The British force was re-embarked and 
went up the river to the little village of 
Lapidum, four miles above Havre de 
Grace, on the west bank. Here there was 
a cannon factory, which they burned. 
Port Deposit lies opposite Lapidum, and 
in another hastily constructed fort there 
a company of volunteers watched, with 
beating hearts, for the British to turn 
their way. But nightfall was near at hand. 
and the attack did not come, as the British 
returned to their ships. 

In Revolutionary days the fleet of Ad- 
miral Lord Howe was for several days 
at anchor in the same position as this 
British fleet was 50 years later, but Havre 
de Grace was too small to be attacked, 
and Philadelphia was the objective point. 
This town was merely a small cluster of 
houses at the west end of an important 
ferry. When communication first began 
between the colonies, 200 years ago, Havre 
de Grace naturally lay in the path of 
travel north and south, just as it does 
today with the railroads. A ferry was here 
in 1635 and probably earlier. In the Revo- 
lution it was the crossing place for large 
bodies of troops. Sometimes the Susque- 
hanna was avoided by a route by boat 
from Klkton to Annapolis, and vice versa, 
but it is known that Washington's army 
in 17S2, on its return northward after the 
victory over Cornwallis. crossed here at 
Havre de Grace, for a diarist who accom- 
panied the army records that two days 
were required for getting over the Susque- 
hanna, only one ferryboat being available. 
When burned by the British. Havre de 
Grace was a village of not more than 60 
houses. Today it is a town with 3,000 in- 
habitants. Fisheries aided its growth, and 
lumber was rafted down the river to it, 
as well as to Port Deposit, opposite. But 
the main help for Havre de Grace came 
from the Tidewater Canal, built along the 
west bank of the Susquehanna from Co- 
lumbia to Havre de Grace 60 years ago, 
and with a lock and outlet at the Mary- 
land terminus costing half a million dol- 
lars. Now that the canal lies helpless, va- 
rious business enterprises have come to 
the front, and its people find employment 

175 



in canneries, a lumber mill, a sash fac- 
tory, a shoe factory, a cotton factory and 
others. 

They have a tradition here that General 
Lafayette selected the name of their town 
by remarking that its site was very much 
like that of Havre de Grace, now the im- 
portant French port of Havre. Another 
traveler is reported to have said the town 
and its surroundings closely recall Rio 
Janeiro. 

The fisheries of this lower end of the 
river are by no means to be despised. 
Each spring for more than a century large 
quantities of shad and herring have been 
caught with seines and gillnets and the 
fish salted and prepared for a wide mar- 
ket. Formerly it was the custom for 
thrifty farmers for many miles around to 
come here prepared for a week's stay in 
order to lay in a stock of salt fish "against 
the year." We are told that these fishing 
gatherings were lively jamborees in many 
cases. 

For the duck-hunter and the angler 
Havre de Grace is a gate into Paradise. 
It has long been famous for canvasbaek 
duck, which are shot on the "flats" or 
marsh lands of the bay and near-by 
creeks— a sport which has in the last 50 
years attracted into this region some of 
the most noted of America's public men. 
In spring and summer rock are plentiful 
a few miles up stream, and bass still far- 
ther up. The trains and the steamboats 
leaving here for Baltimore often carry 
anglers with fine "strings." 

A small island containing several yellow- 
painted buildings lies near the channel of 
the bay a few miles below Havre de Grace 
and in the midst of the wild celery growths 
which the ducks love. Here is a fish hatch- 
ery of the United States Government. The 
island is known as Fishing Battery. 

On each bank of the river here are large 
ice-houses. In recent years the ice which 
has formed has not been thick enough to 
bear cutting, and these big barnlike struc- 
tures have stood desolate and forsaken. 
But in former years a plentiful harvest 
was often reaped, and the scene on the 
frozen river was a strange and busy one. 

176 



One set of men with horses were busy 
marking out the iee fields and cutting 
them as deep as was safe. Another set 
followed them, sawing, plowing, planing; 
a third set towed the big blocks down a 
canal purposely cut toward the ice-house, 
its strip of cold water showing black 
against the white ice on either side. At 
the foot of the inclined plane or elevator 
into the ice-house other men kept the 
crystal blocks in a procession up the in- 
cline, while at the top still other men 
sorted them, rejecting those which were 
not good and sending far into the dark 
interior those which were later destined 
to bring summer comfort to Baltimoreans. 

While some reap fortunes from the riv- 
er's ice, others get disaster. In the first 
spring days, when the ice up the river is 
splitting and breaking, it is liable to jam 
and form great gorges in the narrow parts 
and then suddenly release the waters 
dammed by it so as to cause vast floods 
to sweep down upon the towns of Havre 
de Grace and Port Deposit. Every few 
years this occurs, leaving disaster and in- 
calculable damage in its wake. 

In many homes in this region there are 
pictures representing the famous ice rail- 
road across the river at this point. There 
was no bridge here then, and the scheme 
of travel included a transfer from Havre 
de Grace to Perryville by a steamboat. 
An ice gorge in the winter of 1851-2 so 
completely blocked navigation that the 
company laid tracks upon the ice, and 
from January 15 to February 24 passed 
over them 10,000 tons of freight, baggage 
and mails in 1,378 cars. The mode of 
handling the traffic was by the use of 
locomotives on either side. By one the 
car was given a start down an inclined 
plane from the tracks to the surface of 
the ice. This start caused the cars to 
run out on the ice a considerable distance, 
when they were hauled by horses to the 
foot of the inclined slope on the opposite 
shore, where, by means of a locomotive 
and ;i cable, they were lifted to the level 
of the permanent tracks. 

In 1857 a similar gorge took place, and 
it not being deemed safe to have a rail- 

177 



road on the ice, a plank road was laid 
there, and passengers walked, while the 
baggage and freight were pulled over by 
horse. Since 1866 the bridge has been 
used. 

Of the two goodly-sized towns nere near 
the mouth of the Susquehanna I think the 
palm for attractive location must go to 
Port Deposit. A ridge goes up precipi- 
tously from the river banks, and Port De- 
posit was thus forced to grow in a long, 
narrow line north and south. Viewed 
from a boat on the broad river the town 
is a pretty picture, for its long row of 
homes and stores has a charming back- 
ground in the green hills. 

The river is the only place from which 
to get a good view of the remarkable 
"hanging gardens" back of the handsome 
home of the late Jacob Tome, a million- 
aire to whom Port Deposit owes most of 
its happiness and prosperity. Originally 
the hill rose in uncouth fashion h'gh be- 
hind the house and away above its tower 
and mansard roof. Through blasting and 
hard work by masons a series of stone ter- 
races was built all the way up the hillside 
and then covered with vines, forming a 
garden landscape which is unique. 

In the mansion at the foot Mr. Tome's 
widow still lives, carrying on his enter- 
prises and his charities with marked tact 
and business ability. She is the president 
of the local national bank, which was 
founded by her husband, and is president 
of the Board of Trustees of the Jacob 
Tome Institute, whose square, red brick 
home is on the river side, almost imme- 
diately in front of the mansion. This in- 
stitution was planned by Mr. Tome as a 
model free public school for all grades, 
which should be free, first to the children 
of Port Deposit, then to the children of 
the county. Cecil, then to the children of 
Maryland and then to American children 
generally. It had been in operation nine 
years when the founder died, last year, 
and its success was such that he pro- 
vided liberally for its maintenance, the en- 
dowment being, it is said, about $4,000,000. 
The school has reopened this week for 
the wintor in charge of a new principal, 



formerly head master of Lawrenceville 
school. I was told that fine new buildings 
are to be erected on the ridge back of the 
town. 

A short distance north from the insti- 
tute is another evidence of Mr. Tome's 
liberality to his fellow-citizens. This is 
the Tome Memorial Methodist Episcopal 
Church, one of the handsomest rural 
churches in this country. It was erected 
28 years ago at a cost of $65,000. 

Mr. Tome was a native of York county, 
Pennsylvania, a poor boy, who first made 
money in handling a good share of the 
lumber trade which used to reach Port 
Deposit in rafting days. Subsequently he 
dealt in fertilizers, then did a big bank- 
ing business and used his capital to de- 
velop many transportation and business in- 
dustries. 

Port Deposit's chief industry today is Its 
quarries. A fine quality of granite is 
taktn from the hillside at the north end 
of the town. Several hundred men find 
employment there. The total population 
of the town is about 2,000. 

The story of Port Deposit is more re- 
cent than that of Havre de Grace. There 
was a ferry kept across the river by the 
afterward noted Thomas Cresap, but Port 
Deposit was not named and was not even 
a village until it became the lower termi- 
nus of the old Maryland Canal, which was 
built about a hundred years ago on the 
east side of the river from the State line, 
and of which there are only traces now. 

There is a tale of this region more ro- 
mantic than any found along the entire 
Susquehanna. It concerns the fortunes of 
a daredevil cousin of one of the Lords 
Baltimore, George Talbot. Much of It 
reads like the wildest fiction. I am keep- 
ing it for my last letter. 



179 



XXII. 

GEORGE TALBOT'S CAVE. 



On Watson's Island, Md., in the 
Mouth of the Susquehanna, Sept. 15.— 
From where I stand now. on the north 
end of this historic island, I can plainly 
see a mass of rock rising naked and al- 
most straight up for several hundred feet 
above the east bank of the river about 
half a mile below Port Deposit. 

Until some years ago there was a cave 
in that high hill, which has from time 
immemorial been known as Mount Ararat. 
Traditions of the country hereabouts as- 
sert that in that cave George Talbot, a 
cousin of the Lords Baltimore, hid during 
the excitement which followed his killing 
of Christopher Rousby, a royal tax col- 
lector, in October, 1684. 

This concealment in a cave was but one 
of many such incidents in George Talbot's 
career. Indeed, his adventures in Mary- 
land read more like the developments of 
a sensational thread of fiction than the 
plain narrative of history. Yet it is a 
story well known as fact to the readers 
of the history of colonial Maryland and 
one that is frequently recalled. 

George Talbot owned, through the favor 
of his cousin, the lord proprietary, one of 
the most extensive tracts of land ever 
granted in Maryland. It included all the 
country between Octoraro creek and North 
East river. The Octoraro empties into 
the Susquehanna on its east side half a 
dozen miles above Port Deposit. North 
East river flows into the Chesapeake bay 
several miles east of the mouth of the 
Susquehanna. Both streams have their 
origin in Pennsylvania some miles north 
of the Maryland line. Consequently the 

180 



tract granted to George Talbot included a 
good slice of what is now Cecil county, 
Maryland, and another good bit of Ches- 
ter county, Pennsylvania. 

"Susquehanna Manor" was the name 
which Lord Baltimore applied in the grant 
to Talbot, who is described in the deed as 
"our right trusty and right well-beloved 
cousin and councilor, George Talbot, of 
Castle Rooney, in the county of *Roscom- 
mon, in the Kingdom of Ireland, Esq." 

We of the present day are so accustomed 
to living under a republic that it seems 
hard to comprehend that "Susquehanna 
Manor" was intended to be a genuine 
feudal estate, in which George Talbot as 
"lord of the manor" was absolute master. 
He was expressly authorized to dispense 
justice through manorial courts whenever 
he so elected, and he introduced from Ire- 
land a body of retainers and tenants ready 
to do his bidding as their lord. In his 
palmy days he had a company of mounted 
rangers, whose duty it was to scour the 
country and repel the attacks of hostile 
Indians. A line of blockhouses extended 
from the Susquehanna back into the ex- 
tremes of the manor, and signals were 
established for the purpose of calling the 
"(dan" together. Beacon fires on the 
hills, the blowing of horns and the firing 
of three musket shots in succession, either 
in the daytime or at night, gave notice of 
approaching danger and called this border 
chieftain's followers together. 

In another interesting way George Tal- 
bot transplanted the customs of the mid- 
dle ages to Maryland. He was fond of 
the then decaying sport of hunting with 
hawks, called falconry, and he brought 
with him when he came to Maryland, in 
1680, several of his trained falcons, and 
with them pursued game in the Susque- 
hanna hills. Traditions exist which say 
that the falcons supplied him with food 
when he was hidden in the cave already 
mentioned, and still other traditions as- 
sert that the falcons remained here long 
after George Talbot had left the country, 
and that they made their home on the 
peak of Mount Ararat. 

It was not mere generosity to a relative 
which induced Lord Baltimore to give Tal- 

181 



bot such a big estate. William Penn had 
just procured a grant for Pennsylvania, 
and it was evident that the grants over- 
lapped and that a boundary dispute was 
to ensue. For this reason Talbot, who 
was known to his cousin as an impetuous 
and courageous Irishman, was given the 
tract on the border that he might defend 
hi> cousin's rights, and it was expressly 
stipulated in the grant that within 12 
years he was to settle at least 640 immi- 
grants there. For the four years from 
1680 until 1684 Talbot upheld Maryland's 
end with fidelity, now raiding the planta- 
tion of some holder of a Penn grant, now 
garrisoning a fort in disputed territory. 

It is related in quaint fashion in the 
archives of Pennsylvania how a sheriff of 
that State rode up with deputies to such 
a fort and demanded Talbot's authority 
for coming there, whereupon, we are told, 
"Talbot, with divers of his company, bade 
them stand off, presenting their guns and 
muskets against their breasts, and he, 
pulling a paper, commander-like, out of his 
bosom, said: "Here is my Lord Baltimore's 
commission for what I do.' Then the sher- 
iff bid Talbot and his men depart, but in 
the same warlike posture they stood, and 
in Lord Baltimore's name refused to obey." 

One of Talbot's most daring schemes was 
a plan to kidnap William Penn. The noted 
Quaker in 1683 left his infant city of Phil- 
adelphia to pay his first visit to that por- 
tion of his domain about the lower Sus- 
quehanna. Talbot believed that by sud- 
denly seizing Penn he would end the whole 
dispute. It was a scheme that was worthy 
of Talbot and of the times. In some way 
its execution was prevented, most prob- 
ably through a warning to Penn from some 
cne friendly to the latter's claims. 

Talbot's murder of Rousby caused a 
tragic end of his exciting life in Mary- 
land, but it was done in defense of Lord 
Baltimore's rights, though it undoubtedly 
hurt Lord Baltimore's influence in Eng- 
land. King Charles II was jealous of the 
privileges and exemptions of Lord Balti- 
more's charter, and his royal tax collectors 
and agents followed his example by be- 
having with as much tyranny and insult 

182 



as they dared. This became so marked in 
the case of Rousby and his associate, 
Capt. Thomas Allen, who was cruising 
the Chesapeake in a royal brig, that Tal- 
bot, in anger, went on board the brig at 
old St. Mary's to demand an explanation 
of their conduct. He was at the time a 
deputy governor of the province, surveyor- 
general and president of the provincial 
council, so that he had abundant author- 
ity for his visit. 

Talbot, Allen and Rousby got into a vio- 
lent quarrel on the brig, and when Talbot 
wished to go on shore he was prevented 
from doing so. Then he drew a dagger 
and stabbed Rousby to the heart. Allen 
carried Talbot as a prisoner to Virginia, 
refusing to surrender him to the Mary- 
land authorities for trial. 

The next incident in Talbofs career is 
not the least interesting. It was his res- 
cue from Gloucester gaol by his wife and 
a few devoted retainers. In midwinter 
they sailed down the Chesapeake in Tal- 
bot's yacht, called a shallop, and landed 
about 20 miles from Gloucester, where two 
of Talbot's faithful followers, Phelim Mur- 
ray and Hugh Reilly, mounted swift 
horses and started for the prison. There, 
by Irish wit and suavity, they accom- 
plished the release of Talbot and brought 
him back in safety to the vessel on which 
his wife waited. Then they made the best 
of speed back to Susquehanna Manor. 

In the hue and cry which followed the 
escape Talbot bethought him of the cave 
on Mount Ararat's steep hillside. It was 
a natural formation in the granite bluff, 
about 12 feet wide, 10 feet high and 20 
feet deep. Its exact location was on the 
northern end of the hill, not far above 
the river and near Herring run, the little 
stream which runs into the river there. 
Until 30 years ago the cave was an object 
of much attention on the part of the curi- 
ous in the neighborhood, but finally it 
was removed by blasting the rocks which 
surrounded it in order to use them for an 
improvement in river navigation. 

To this cave Talbot repaired. He had 
with him a flaxen wig and other means of 
disguise, and he was kept supplied with 

183 



* 



information and food by several faithful 
followers, among them Richard Touch- 
stone, who subsequently came into pos- 
session of Mount Ararat and the cave. It 
seems probable that Talbot did not make 
a continuous stay in the cave, but fre- 
quently ventured forth in his boat for a 
sail upon the river and bay. 

Finally, to save his friends further anx- 
iety, the courageous Irishman voluntarily 
surrendered himself and was in April, 
1686, tried in Virginia and convicted of 
the murder of Rousby. But his noble 
kinsman. Lord Baltimore, was prepared 
for the emergency and had obtained from 
the King and sent over a pardon. 

With his influence lost because of his 
crime, Talbot did not remain long upon 
Susquehanna Manor after his return to it 
from Virginia. He went back to Ireland, 
took part in the struggle between James 
II and the Protestants, and after the 
downfall of the Stuarts entered the serv- 
ice of France in the noted Irish Brigade, 
with which he was killed in battle. 

There remains no trace of the manor 
house or feudal home which Talbot had 
built on Principio creek near Principio 
Falls, a few miles back from the Sus- 
quehanna and near the spot where the 
Principio Iron Furnace has been located 
for nearly 200 years. Lord Baltimore sub- 
sequently made new grants of the vast 
quantity of land embraced in Susquehanna 
Manor, and with the manor utterly gone, 
the home on Principio gone and the cave 
on Mount Ararat gone, there is now 
naught to recall the romantic story of 
George Talbot save the records of history. 
Into what the lower end of the Susque- 
hanna might have developed had Talbot 
retained his feudal power no one can guess. 

This evening we leave the Susquehanna. 
For a month we have journeyed beside it, 
and the promise of beauty and historic 
charm which induced us to start upon such 
a jaunt has indeed been well kept. Few 
rivers could do so much. With memory's 
aid this one shall ever be cherished. 



184 



